The Golden Season

by Brockway, Connie

  “Allow me,” he said. His voice was entirely calm.

  If only the same could be said of her heartbeat. It pattered madly.

  Without waiting permission, he moved past her up the ladder. He didn’t need to climb nearly as high as she and when he stopped, he had only to stretch out a long arm to secure the bowl and lift it from the shelf.

  Who is he?

  He returned with it and handed it to her. “This is the bowl?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. She took it from him and her attention shifted. She loved such things.

  At first, she’d taken to studying the artifacts in Sir Grimley’s house because there’d been little else to do in the big, cavernous manor without any company other than the servants that her guardian employed. But later, she’d developed an honest fascination. Not that very many people knew this. Expertise was not required of a beauty.

  Now, her practiced eye moved over the high-footed rim of the bowl, the impressed woven silk pattern under the blue and white glaze and the pinholes in the base. Her own home had many examples of such porcelain.

  “Chinese,” she murmured. “Kangxi, I believe. One can tell because of the Islamic influence of the design and the crowding of the figures.”

  “Ah, you are a connoisseur,” he said.

  “Merely an enthusiast,” she demurred. It was a lovely thing, in perfect condition. “This is a very handsome piece.”

  “Extraordinary, I’d say.” His voice was thoughtful.

  She looked up. He was regarding her intently. “You know something about Chinese porcelain?”

  “Not really,” he admitted. “But I do know quality when I see it. Yes, I believe I have found exactly what I want.”

  “This is not all that old, less than a hundred years if I am correct, but still quite rare,” she said. She could not resist teasing him a bit. “Perhaps you can’t afford it.”

  “I almost certainly cannot.” His smile was lopsided and wry.

  “Then perhaps you ought to ask the price before you set your heart on it.”

  “It’s too late for that, I’m afraid,” he said.

  She laughed. “You are too frank, sir. It makes you vulnerable. Someone less honest than I would be tempted to take advantage of such openness.”

  He sketched a courtly bow. “I am at the mercy of your better self.”

  “Ah!” She waggled a finger at him. “But you are assuming I have a better self. Perhaps I am entirely mercenary.”

  “Are you?” he asked and Lydia checked, regarding him in surprise.

  He was serious. And he obviously expected her to answer him in kind. She didn’t know how to react. Gentlemen of her acquaintance played at conversation. They did not seek honesty from words, only sport.

  She felt heat rise in her cheeks as he caught her interest anew, this time with something other than his manners and his looks. Now she wanted to know not only who he was, but what manner of man.

  “Miss?”

  She was not about to answer a question about whether she was mercenary or not, particularly now, when she’d so recently decided to barter her independence for wealth. “I’m afraid I don’t know what my uncle is asking for it,” she said instead.

  “Ah. Then I’ll wait.”

  At this, Lydia’s head snapped around. “No! I mean, my uncle warned me he would be gone for quite some time, hours perhaps, and you can’t mean to dally here all afternoon.”

  “No? But there’s so much to explore. So many unanticipated surprises.”

  Panic touched her. If this man found out she’d masqueraded as a shopgirl, he would think her the worst sort of romp, on par with Caroline Lamb, who for years had made a fool of herself by chasing after Byron. And should he then relate the tale—and men always related such tales—oh, no!

  Perhaps she should throw herself on his mercy? If she told him all and appealed to him as a gentleman, he would be obliged to keep her confidence. But he would still think her a hoyden. She didn’t want him to think she was a hoyden! Oh!

  And it was at that moment that Berthe’s baby, forgotten and fragrant, wet and hungry, who’d woken when the candlestick hit the floor and had been industriously sucking on his foot for the last fifteen minutes, decided he’d enough of this unproductive occupation and commenced howling.

  “What in God’s name is that?” the gentleman asked.

  “The baby!” Lydia said, clapping a hand to her cheek. She brushed past him, hurrying over to the bombé chest. The baby’s face was screwed up in a little red knot, its mouth a circle of outrage.

  Without thinking, she reached into the drawer and swept the infant into her arms, blanket and all. “Hush. Hush little . . . little . . . one,” she crooned against its damp skull.

  It wailed louder.

  She stared helplessly at the gorgeous gentleman. He looked as unnerved as she felt.

  “Is the baby yours?” he asked.

  “Good Lord, no!” she burst out. “It’s . . . it’s my cousin’s.”

  “It?” the gentleman echoed.

  “The baby,” Lydia declared, exasperated. “What should I do?”

  Amusement replaced his surprise. “I have no idea. Not only am I without a wife, I am without children.”

  The baby turned its head and smashed its drool-rimmed mouth against Lydia’s chin and began gumming her noisily. Lydia froze, horrified.

  “Oh!” Her voice quavered. “Why is it doing that?”

  “I think it’s hungry,” the gentlemen offered seriously.

  “Obviously,” Lydia replied tartly. “Since it’s trying to eat me.”

  “I don’t think so. I think it’s, er”—a faint ruddy color rose in his lean cheeks—“seeking its mother’s—”

  “I know that!” Lydia snapped, an answering heat boiling into her face.

  “What is it anyway?” he asked.

  She stared at him, confounded, the child’s mouth still attached to her chin. “A baby.”

  “I mean what gender? You keep referring to the baby as ‘it.’ ”

  “Oh. How silly of me. It’s a”—she took a wild guess—“a boy.”

  She shifted the baby to the other side, breaking off its fruitless rooting. It shrieked in protest.

  “Jostle him,” the gentleman suggested. “Gently.”

  “I thought you didn’t have children.”

  “I have nieces and nephews and their nurse jostled them when they screeched.”

  “What?” Lydia shouted above the angry yowling.

  “Never mind!” the gentleman shouted back. “Jostle him! Gently!”

  Lydia did not get the opportunity to try out the suggestion. Berthe burst through the back door of the shop and rushed toward her, arms outstretched, a look in her eyes that was quite alarming.

  “My baby!” She snatched the child from Lydia’s arms. At once, the little Roubalais quieted, his howls turning into hiccups of infantile relief. The feral light (which Lydia was only now identifying as maternal) faded from Berthe’s eyes as she realized just whom she had been about to assault. The color leached from her face. “Oh! Please forgive me—”

  “I should think you do ask my pardon, Cousin,” Lydia broke in. “You have been gone far longer than you originally promised. Cousin.”

  Berthe opened her mouth to speak, but caught sight of the slight shake of Lydia’s head and closed it.

  “Is my uncle done with his lunch, then?” Lydia asked brightly.

  “Uncle?” Berthe asked hesitantly.

  “Who else?” Lydia manufactured a tight little laugh. “I swear motherhood has played havoc with your wits. I hate to think what will happen with the birth of another. You might mistake me for some lady. And what lady would appear in a pawnbroker’s shop looking like this?” She shot a telling look at her smock and dirty hands.

  “She’d be the subject of all sorts of untoward comments.”

  “Oh? Oh!” Berthe said, finally tumbling to Lydia’s predicament. “Indeed, yes, Cousin. Motherhood has m
ade me hen-witted. But I was coming to tell you that Father is on his way even as we speak, so you can leave. Now. I shall be more than happy to help this gentleman.”

  Good girl, Lydia thought in relief. Not only was Berthe warning her that Roubalais would be arriving any minute, she was giving her an excuse to intercept him. “Thank you,” she breathed gratefully.

  She looked at the gentleman. He was regarding her with an odd gentleness, his hands clasped behind his back.

  She had little doubt she would see him again. The cut of his coat, the style in which he’d tied his cravat, his deportment, and address all bespoke a man of wealth and taste. She also had no doubt he would not recognize her. Take away her fashionable accoutrements and set a lady in a milieu where one does not expect to find her, and few men or women would recognize her as someone they knew. It was the way the world worked. Her world.

  She should hurry. Berthe had said so. Yet something kept her. “I hope you can come to terms over your find, sir,” she told him.

  “Thank you. I will do my utmost to make her mine,” he said gravely.

  He had the most arresting eyes.

  “Best get home before lunch cools,” Berthe prompted. “You know how Mother is.”

  “Yes. Thank you. Good day, sir,” she said, and without waiting for his reply she hurried off to intercept Roubalais.

  Chapter Five

  Ned watched Lady Lydia Eastlake dash out the back door of the shop and smiled.

  Thank God the woman was wealthy and had no need to work for her keep because she’d never have made a living on stage. She was a terrible actress. She wore her thoughts on her expressive countenance: first amusement, then enjoyment, then a short- lived fear her accent—a terrible jumble of aristocratic tones and purposely dropped consonants—had given her away, the triumph she’d felt on thinking her explanation had deceived him, fear upon the other girl’s return, and finally panicked flight.

  It was a pity. She’d been having a grand time playing shopgirl. In fact, he’d been as attracted to her obvious glee in her masquerade as her stunning good looks. There was something about her pleasure that called to him, inveigled him to join. The woman was like champagne, a little intoxicating.

  He had known who she was as soon as she’d clambered down off the ladder. He’d have to be a half-wit not to. Every newspaper and magazine carried illustrations of her, and their pages were devoted to descriptions of her and where she was entertained, at what time, and in whose company. Certain playing cards even featured her likeness as the Queen of Diamonds and Sir Thomas Lawrence had recently unveiled his painting of her at the Royal Academy. But most telling of all, there was no possible way two women could have eyes that color.

  They really were a remarkable shade, a deep nocturnal purple, like a martin’s wing. In other ways, she reminded him of a silky little swallow, too: fluid and elegant and cheeky. She was—

  “Sir?”

  He looked down. A very small, nervous-looking Frenchman had entered the shop and stood pointing at the bowl Ned still held.

  “Ah, yes,” Ned said. “How much for this bowl?”

  Roubalais suggested a price and Ned paid it, biding his time while the girl wrapped the parcel and giving Lady Lydia ample opportunity to make good her escape. When Berthe finished, she handed him the wrapped package. He considered questioning her about her illustrious client but took pity. It would only put her in the position of either betraying a peer or lying to one.

  “Thank you,” he said, taking the bowl and tipping his head. Lady Lydia had had plenty of time to flee by now. At any rate, he intended to walk the opposite direction of where her well-known yellow-wheeled carriage was parked, toward Boodle’s Club. There was a gentleman there, Childe Smyth, to whom his nephew Harry owed a great deal of money. He frowned, more despairing of the whole situation than annoyed.

  It did no good to be annoyed with any of the Locktons. They shared the same family traits: bluff and blustering, softhearted, weak-willed, and unworldly. Wondrously enough, they considered themselves none of these things. Ned considered it an oddly endearing myopia even though he knew this sentiment was just as peculiar. But he’d always been a little staggered by his siblings’ unfounded bombast and bravado and they were just as befuddled by his lack of the same qualities.

  Once, while in the throes of a good drunk, Ned’s godfather, Admiral Nelson, had confided that he considered that rather than Ned being the proverbial cuckoo in the sparrow’s nest, a nest of cuckoos had hatched themselves a young hawk. Ned didn’t feel like a hawk. Since his return home, he felt more like a mother hen.

  Not that he wanted his family to be any different. The truth was, he loved them all very much.

  He hadn’t always. Like most lads, he’d quite taken them for granted when he’d applied for a situation on Nelson’s ship. If anything, he’d been desperate to escape the chaos and confusion, mismanagement and mayhem of Josten Hall. But as the years passed, the gravity of Napoleon’s quest for power had turned a schoolboy’s lust for adventure into grim duty. The image of Josten Hall and the chaotic family that occupied it had become a lodestone, beckoning him home.

  The calm, tranquil boy he’d been no longer existed, though he wore the same smile and had the same manner. His calmness had become stoicism and his tranquillity a deep-seated dispassion that had been necessary for him to give the orders he had given, send men where he had sent them, and do what he had done. He never wanted any one of his family to know what he knew, or imagine those things he had seen, or some he had been required to do. And there was no reason they should. He had fought in part to preserve their naïveté, their bombastic, boisterous innocence.

  There had been times when only the thought of his family at Josten Hall, just as he remembered them, posturing and blustering and blessedly, wholesomely oblivious, had kept him from despair. There was no question that he would do all within his power for the family, he thought as he approached Boodle’s discreet front door. Even marrying an heiress. And why not? He longed for those things for which he’d fought: a home, heirs, security, tradition. It was time he wed a woman of wealth and intelligence, one whom he could admire.

  That was his criteria. Had been his criteria until now. Because of a sudden he realized he required—no, not required—he wanted more, he thought as he nodded to the doorman at the entrance to Boodle’s.

  He was no sooner through the door into the foyer when a voice hailed him. “Ned? Captain Ned Lockton?”

  He turned to find a slight fellow a few years his junior making his way down the corridor toward him, his movements constrained by the close fit of his pantaloons and the waist-nipping cut of a coat with exaggerated shoulders. A high collar cinched round with an elaborately tied blue cravat obscured the lower half of his face while sandy curls brushed toward his face did a fair job of obscuring the rest.

  “Good Lord, Borton, is that you?” Ned asked.

  The Honorable George Borton’s family, comfortable country gentry, lived ten miles from Josten Hall. Borton had tagged after him when they were lads until Ned had entered the navy. The last time Ned had seen Borton was two years ago, just after his niece, Mary, had turned down his offer of marriage. Apparently, since then Borton had been developing some town bronze. “How fare you, Borton?”

  “Flourishing, Ned,” Borton said, then noting Ned’s appraisal of his ensemble, said, “Hale.”

  “Delighted to hear it.”

  “No, not me, me tailor, Captain. Paul Hale. Though your tailor looks to have a done a plumb job, too, sir. Never seen shoulder padding set in so well.”

  Ned didn’t bother telling him his coat had no padding. “Thank you.”

  “I didn’t know you were a member here.”

  “Josten has submitted my name for consideration.”

  “Consideration nothing,” Borton proclaimed, clapping him on the shoulder. “I’m on the election committee. Here!” He waved a hovering footman over. “Take Captain Lockton’s parcel for him and bring u
s a drink. Port, isn’t it? Port it is.”

  He smiled and clapped Ned on the back again. Let me show you around. Wonderful library we have, and the most comfortable chairs in all of London. And, lest you need reminding, we, too, have a bow window just like White’s.

  “Best of all,” he continued, “we’ve got no women. How’s your niece, Mary? No, don’t tell me. She’s not engaged, is she? ’Course not. Would have heard. Where was I? Oh, yes. No women. We are a kingdom of men, an island set above the cacophony of female voices. Should it be your desire, you wouldn’t have to set eyes on a female for weeks. How is Mary?”

  Ned, who had been without female company for the greater part of his adult life, could not help but smile. “It sounds rather like my last commission.”

  Borton shot him a quick glance and seeing that he was being twitted, smiled. “Forgot that that’s hardly an endorsement for you, eh, Captain? So what would be a recommendation? Good food? Congenial company? The most current publications? Why, Brummell himself is a member here, though he’s mostly absent of late.” He placed his finger alongside his nose and leaned forward. “Dunners.” He straightened. “Still there’s plenty of sport to be had.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Ned replied.

  Borton’s neat features pressed together in consternation. “Forgot about that. Damn foolish thing for your nephew to play against Smyth. Regular Captain Sharp, that one. Nothing untoward, of course. Simply a veteran of more nights of ruinous play than most men twice his age. Heard several of the members tried to talk the lad into quitting the table. No luck.”

  “I’ve no doubt of that. Sense is not my family’s long suit, I am afraid.”

  “I feel responsible in part. I should have been watching out for those two. They were like brothers to me until . . . and it weren’t their fault Mary . . .” He broke off and colored. “Anyway, knew something like this would happen. Bound to. Never seen such cocksureness as that pair display. And all of it unwarranted.”