Charlotte turned back to Wellbridge, who seemed to be having a difficult time containing his merriment. “I must apologize for my cousin’s rudeness. Apparently, she still believes herself in the back alleys of Calcutta. You have exquisite taste. I had been advising the lavender myself.”
“Not at all, Lady Firthley. I’m sure Lady Huntleigh is perfectly right, questioning the intent of a man buying her gifts. An inch of ribbon today, a mile of liberties tomorrow.”
“Quite right,” Bella sniffed as she told the shop girl, “You may put back the ribbon. I won’t be—”
“Oh, no. You may not want it, Lady Huntleigh, but I do.” Wellbridge snatched the bag from the girl, handing her a half-sovereign from his pocket and waving away any change. As though she were afraid he would take it back, she slipped out of the room.
Bella’s voice mocked him, “What are you going to do with ribbon?”
“I daresay someone will appreciate it.”
Annoyed and not afraid to show it, Bella shrugged a cold shoulder and turned up her nose. No doubt he bought dresses for dozens of different women, and there was no reason for her day to be ruined by it. She started sifting through the offerings on the table and forced her heart to slow its beating.
Wellbridge uncurled the red ribbon from the bag, twisting it neatly in his white-gloved fingers. He handed the coil to Charlotte, bowing politely. “I hope you will give my most abject apology to Lord Firthley for my impertinence, but I simply cannot stand to see you leave without this. It is so perfect with the black lace, for that bit of decadence to pique his interest.”
Charlotte blushed from the top of her head to the lace on her bodice, stammering, “Of course. I’m sure he will be grateful not to be forced to give an opinion.”
Bella studiously stared away from them, pretending a wholehearted interest in white eyelet, making no move toward a curtsey, or even a nod. Charlotte stepped on her cousin’s toe, but Bella pulled her foot away, stomped it like a child, and ran her fingers over a bolt of rose-point lace, all while pretending there were no dukes or marchionesses in the room.
Wellbridge tipped his hat to them, lips twitching, disregarding Bella’s deliberate cut. “I hope you ladies enjoy the rest of your shopping trip.” He placed the bag in the pocket of his greatcoat and left.
Charlotte rounded on Bella. “I have never in our lives seen you so rude! He is a duke, Bella, a duke, and one of Myron’s investors!”
Bella growled, “Just because you entertain lewd fantasies of the Duke of Wellbridge does not mean I do.” She sat suddenly on the low stool she had been occupying before his interruption and spat out between gritted teeth, “You are perfectly free to follow him out onto the street and beg his favors.”
Charlotte smiled slyly, “Oh, it is you he wants to follow along, not me, and I do hope he leads you a merry chase.” Charlotte took her seat delicately, straightening her skirt, organizing the small pile of fabric she would be purchasing, setting aside the bolts and spools she had decided against.
“That is ridiculous,” Bella snapped, once it was clear Charlotte would hold her tongue indefinitely. “Look at him! A man like that cannot possibly be interested in me.”
Charlotte remained silent, carefully wrapping a length of green silk piping, placing it in the pile of items she would take with her, then moving it to those rejected, then back again. Bella reached across, stole the trim and placed it in her own pile of purchases.
While Bella set aside four sable pelts, Charlotte took back the piping and tucked it underneath the ribbon the duke had given her, then stared indecisively at a two-ell remnant of fringe the same shade as the new walking dress she had ordered.
“He is merely being polite,” Bella finally posited, “if you can call it that. Scandalous bit of decadence, indeed.”
“Polite, is he? He has never said more than two words to me before. Now you are back in England, and he is suddenly polite?”
Bella found herself slamming bolts of lace until the shop girl came back to hover nervously, picking up rejected items before they could be torn in a fit of temper.
“Perhaps he hadn’t made it to your name yet on his long list of conquests,” Bella glared, “I shall have to warn Alexander to be on his guard when you start wearing black lace and red ribbons. Now, since that awful man has so rudely bought the entire spool of lavender ribbon right out from under me, I have to choose another color. I so dislike pink, but perhaps this salmon isn’t so dreadful. It might call for a darker green silk for the bodice, though.” Bella extended an olive branch before the argument deteriorated any further. “What do you think?”
Charlotte snatched Bella’s olive branch and poked her with it: “I think the Duke of Wellbridge likes the lavender.”
Bella restrained herself to a genteel growl, “Then the Duke of Wellbridge may have the lavender sewn onto his own frocks.” A tense rumble caught in her throat. “It will look bloody lovely with his thrice-damned eyes.”
Charlotte complained, “Must you speak like a sailor?”
Bella motioned to the linen draper, now overseeing the shop girl to ensure the fabrics were in good repair before they left. “The entire spool of salmon trim, please, and five ells of the Point de Gaze. No, six. And all of this,” she indicated the additional pile of purchases, pointedly separating it from Charlotte’s, but paying lip service to calming the disagreement. “We will have to stop at the modiste again to order Pomona green instead of Saxon.”
“Perhaps if we are fast enough,” Charlotte crowed, “we can overtake the duke, so he can see how your hands tremble when I say his name.”
An hour later, against Bella’s silent, but somehow still vociferous, objections, Charlotte’s wish was granted. Bella, Charlotte, the two children and the nurse were seated across the square from Gunter’s in the Firthley’s open landau. Standing alone nearby, the Duke held a dish of lemon ice in his hand, condensation dripping onto his glove. He made no attempt at contact, but for the occasional look their way, nodding at others in the crowd, but engaging in no conversations.
It couldn’t last long, however. The speculative looks of the ladies nearby presaged an imminent mob of gently-bred females. He was starting to look a bit chary.
“Duke,” Charlotte called out just as a very brave young woman and her mother began to cross the square directly toward him. Charlotte made a bit of a scene, rising slightly from her seat and motioning for him to join them, Bella trying unsuccessfully to stay her hand. When he walked over, avoiding the gaze of the disappointed debutante, he removed his hat and bowed, but didn’t even suggest joining them in the carriage.
Bella sighed, “I vow you are following me.”
He laughed, “Of course not, Lady Huntleigh. It is just my great good luck to come upon you twice in one day. Please, do keep your seat, Lady Firthley.” Wellbridge held his free hand out to forestall any deference from anyone, though Bella had already decided she would nail her slippers to the carriage floor before ever curtseying to him again.
Charlotte offered, “Would you care to join us?”
“I would love to sit, Lady Firthley. I’m afraid it has been a trying afternoon of fruitless shopping for my nephew’s birthday. I’m sure I’ve walked at least fifty furlongs.”
As the Firthley’s tiger pulled down the stairs and opened the door, Charlotte poked Jewel. “Your Grace, my daughter, Lady Julia Marloughe.” The six-year-old carefully, reluctantly, set her coconut ice on the seat so she could stand, her knees and the carriage wobbling as she curtsied, lisping, “Pleathed to make your acquaintanthe, Your Grathe.”
“Lady Julia, I am honored beyond measure,” he said with a deep, formal bow. As he entered, he gave her his hand to help her scramble back onto her seat and removed his top hat. Jewel giggled madly at being called Lady by a stranger, but quickly went back to the important business of the treat in the glass dish on her lap. Wellbridge turned to Nurse and chucked baby Alex under the chin. “And this must be the young Earl of Herrendon.
”
“Hare-din,” Alex agreed, chewing on the melted chocolate all over his fingers.
Wellbridge smiled at Charlotte. “Keep him this age as long as you can, Lady Firthley. Seventeen-year-old boys are miserable beasts. I had promised to buy my nephew a curricle and team for his birthday, but his mother forbade it, which provoked the most appalling fit of temper. He called my sister names for which I might have killed any other man.”
Charlotte nodded sagely, as though she had raised hundreds of young men. “Lord Firthley says if our son resembles him in temperament, Baby’s adolescent years will be better served away at school, but I can’t believe my sweet boy will cause me even a moment of wretchedness.”
She pinched Alex’s cheek and spoke to him in baby talk: “Mummy’s boy doesn’t want to go away to school, does he?”
Alex dragged his face away, yelling, “No touch Hare-din! No, Mama! No!” Wellbridge managed to keep from snorting, but Bella did not.
“The point of boarding school, Charlotte,” she said, caustically, “is that other people will manage his wretchedness, and you may take credit for manners someone else will enforce with a stick.”
Wellbridge pursued a policy of appeasement. “I’m sure Herrendon will grow up a fine chap who adores his mother.” Then he took the even wiser course of changing the topic. “Unruly though my nephew may be, it is his birthday, and he has achieved top marks in his examinations, so I must find a gift as excellent as a curricle, but which will not incur my sister’s wrath.”
“Have you any other ideas?” Charlotte asked, looking at him the same way she looked at baby Alex when he tried to learn a new word.
“A skiff received the same reception as a carriage. He is too young for an estate where he might hide from his mother in a fit of pique, or an account he might use to run away to some half-heathen British colony, which would be laid entirely at my feet. Neither White’s nor Brooks’s will entertain him yet for membership, and I’ve been banned from giving him brandy or snuff, my gifts from a favored uncle at eighteen. And Allie will lock Henry in a box before she allows him out in the evening with me, afraid I’ll take him on a tour of disreputable London, which my father did for both me and my brother, and what Thad will do if we can find a way between us to sneak it past her.”
The nurse gasped, reflexively covering the baby’s ears before she remembered herself, rapidly ducking her head to clean the sugar off Alex’s clothes.
Wellbridge shrugged, “One afternoon with Henry at Gentleman Jackson’s, a few unfortunate bruises that made him the envy of all his friends, and suddenly I am the worst influence imaginable. But I assure you, I have never been so bad as my sister makes out.”
“Are you certain?” Bella asked sweetly, drumming her fingertips on the carriage door.
Wellbridge’s lips turned up in much the same fashion as when she had cut him at the linen draper’s shop.
“I simply think a boy should know how to fight and play cards before he is old enough to lose his money to Captain Sharp.”
Before Bella could draw enough breath to give her palpable opinion, Charlotte changed the subject faster than a two-year-old dashing across a room. Her lips looked like they were trying to outrun the words on the tip of her tongue.
“So what will you do for his birthday?”
“I’m afraid all I am left with is ordering him a wardrobe, but no matter how elegant the tailoring, I am sure it will be deemed far too boring from such a brilliant uncle as I. Cravats and gloves are so pedestrian.”
“A riding horse?” Charlotte suggested.
“That was my first thought, Lady Firthley, but I met his father at Tattersall’s with the same idea, and Nockham claimed it as a father’s privilege before I could offer a fencing match to decide the matter. In truth, I had to concede, in recompense for the puppy I gave Henry without consulting his parents when he was ten.”
Bella’s countenance softened for half a second, and Charlotte turned almost treacly, saved from fawning over his kindness only when she exclaimed, “Ah! I have it! A pocket watch! He is old enough to mark the occasion formally, your sister can’t possibly object, and I’m sure you can think of something terribly clever for the inscription. We just saw the most interesting timepieces at Rundell’s.”
“That is a capital idea, Lady Firthley! I wish I had told you my troubles when we spoke earlier. I might be home by now.”
“Pity,” Bella said, looking for a reaction sideways.
Wellbridge ignored Bella’s insult entirely, holding his gloved finger out to Alex, who grasped it with both of his grubby hands. “You have a very smart Mama, Herrendon. I hope she is not so strict as my sister and lets you play cards and fight with the other boys.”
“Knowing my husband, I’m sure the lessons have already begun. And of course, there is no way to know what bad habits he might pick up at school.”
Nick agreed, “As an Eton man myself, I can confirm such scurrilous tutorial, though it won’t do at all to discuss the hallowed halls with you ladies.” As he spooned the last of the lemon ice from his bowl, he asked, “Is everyone quite sated? I would be pleased to buy Lady Julia another, if she so wishes.”
Jewel piped up, “Pleathe, Mama? I want the goothberry, too.”
“Heavens, no. That is very kind of you, Sir, but Jewel has had more than enough. Bella has been spoiling her with treats all day long. It will be a wonder if she eats any dinner at all.”
“Well, Lady Julia, I cannot disregard your mother’s wishes, but perhaps she will allow me the pleasure of a gift that will not spoil your appetite?” He arched a brow at Charlotte and she nodded with a sly smile. Bella looked back and forth between them, sensing a devious plan that neither could have arranged.
Wellbridge reached into his pocket and took out the bag from the linen draper. Without even a glance at Bella, he turned over the ribbon with a flourish of his hat. Jewel took it with wide eyes and started begging Nurse to replace the blue ribbons in her messy ringlets.
“What do you say to the duke, Jewel?” Charlotte reproved.
Jewel stood up and curtsied again. “Thank you, Your Grathe, for your kindneth?” As Charlotte nodded, Jewel turned back to Nurse, shoving the ribbons at her and demanding attention to her hair.
Nurse responded with, “Seen and not heard, Miss,” but she took the ribbons anyway, finally smiling at Wellbridge, untying the blue ribbon, uncurling the purple, and taking embroidery scissors from her reticule.
“And you, Lady Huntleigh? Have you had enough?”
“I have had more than my fill,” she said, not referring to ice cream. “We cannot stay long, in any case. I’ve promised the children a Punch-and-Judy show at Covent Garden before we return home.”
His eyes gleamed as he observed, “By Jove, it has been years since I took in a puppet show. My sister’s youngest is just past twelve, and informs me she is far too old now for such childish pursuits, but I have always enjoyed the marionettes. Lady Julia,” he said, replacing and tipping his hat, “might you allow me the honor of accompanying you to the theatre this afternoon?”
Bella rolled her eyes, Charlotte stifled a laugh, and Jewel just stared around the carriage at all of the adults, unnerved by the continued attention of a man she’d never met.
Charlotte prompted, “What does a young lady say when a gentleman asks to escort her?”
Screwing up her forehead, tongue between her teeth, Jewel said, “Yeth, Your Grathe, I would be pleathed for you to join uth?” She looked up at her mother for approval, and Charlotte nodded.
“It will be my privilege, Lady Julia.”
Chapter 9
“Why are you here, Michelle?” Malbourne asked, displeasure oozing from his voice as he entered his study. He had travelled from London for his brief monthly sojourn in the country, expecting no distraction from his estate business, since he had sent his needy mistress back to France the third time she mentioned marriage. Aside from meeting with his steward to collect the quarterly re
nts, he wanted only to blow off the stink of bowing and scraping to people less noble than he, not to entertain uninvited, unwanted guests waiting at his gate. He would have to leave on the morrow to return to the rank, dirty city, and he wanted nothing but quiet and the view of France from his cliffs between now and then.
Instead, he was forced to attend to this unwelcome female.
Having been ushered into his study and made to wait two hours without refreshment, the obsequious woman rose from the Bergère chair upon his entry into the room, curtseying deeply. Taking a seat at the gilded Riesener desk, he ran his eyes up and down his visitor, but did not invite her to sit. Her cheap, grimy, green cotton dress had no place in this elegant room, nor did the smell of weeks traveling by public coach and steerage. The aroma nearly made his eyes water, but he would never rise to open another window. It would only serve to emphasize how few servants he could now afford.
The sound of the waves crashing against his Dover cliffs flowed in through the open casement, not quite obscuring his profound irritation.
“It has been more than thirty years. I had hoped never to see you again.”
“And still you look as handsome as I remember.”
“Spare me the toadying. State your business.”
The woman bowed her head, staring at the wall to her left. Her thinning red hair was matted and disheveled, falling from pins where it wasn’t sticking out in tufts, above a sharp face set with deep lines, dark eyes flashing with fear—and something else familiar he was loath to define.
“Forgive me, Monsieur le Duc. I do not mean to disturb.”
She nearly whispered, twisting her dress in her hands, as though she would wring out the filth onto his carpet. Finding himself disgusted by her state of disrepair, he turned toward the roughened, dented, patched suit of armor in the corner, worn by the first Duc de Malbourne in the seventeenth-century. The plated iron was one of the few items of family significance his retainer had found after the peasants overran the property. Like the stone walls, it had been impervious to fire and too unwieldy to carry off.
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