Lady Bannister nodded, wondering how she would keep possession of the bill of sale for her files, marked D for depravity. “He comes from a good family, writes a neat hand. High-minded horizontals.” She drifted out of the room with the vague excuse of preparations for the ball.
“That’s very kind of you not to stand in the fellow’s way,” Lord Wingate said after accepting a cup of coffee and a wink from Irma. “Who knows how high a churchman can rise, with the right connections. Of course, he’d need the perfect helpmate. Someone who can serve the needy and entertain the bishop. Someone like your charming Miss Inessa, for instance, who is much too good for a frippery fellow like me.”
“Belvoir, eh?”
“Oh, Papa, please.”
“Tea with the bishop, what? That would please your mama; you could get his autograph.”
“My Kelvin might even be the bishop someday, Papa.”
“Your Kelvin, is it? Well, Irene said she wanted to see you all settled by the hunt ball. Send him to me, Nessie, we’ll talk.”
6
“You were magnificent, Lord Wingate!”
“Winn.”
“That, too! Why, the horse, the high-flyer. I swear you couldn’t have done better!”
“So we statesmen are not such stodgy, paltry fellows after all, eh, Glory?”
“I should say not. It’s a wonder we lost the colonies. I daresay you must have poured buckets of brandy down Mr. Frye’s throat to get that paper.”
“No, the makebait was barely disguised. He merely drives a hard bargain. I must have been the one who was cupshot, paying a thousand pounds for a filly! Never in my life have I been so outrageously extravagant. And my poor head!”
“Oh dear, and it was all my fault!” Irma cried, clutching at his arm.
“Don’t shout, sweetheart!” he moaned, but he squeezed her hand on his arm, and did not let Irma draw it back to her side.
They were walking in the woods, unsupervised since Lady Bannister was closeted in her sitting room with Vicar Allbright’s latest sermon. Yes, the i’s were dotted with a dollop of devout dedication, but, ah, the a’s were awash with ambition. Poor Kelvin had ridden over to ask an opinion, and he was stumbling home with a new bride, a new position, and no Sunday sermon.
Lord Wingate, despite his throbbing head, was meanwhile basking in the light of another crisp day, and Irma’s grateful admiration. The companionable silence was broken only by the sound of their booted feet kicking up leaves, and the occasional bark of Bridey, the old hound bitch, who waddled along behind them. Winn was thinking what a relief it was not to have to make idle chitchat, and Irma was struck dumb, for once, at his endearment, and the fact that Viscount Wingate had actually sought out her company. She pretended to study the treetops so she wouldn’t be caught staring at him in his fawn breeches and high-topped Hessians.
After the fresh air had cleared his head somewhat, Lord Wingate commented, “Well, now there is only one sister to be saved from sacrifice on the altar of marriage.”
“You need not concern yourself, my lord.”
He stopped walking. “I thought we were friends. Of course I am concerned.”
A squirrel was suddenly found fascinating as Irma considered whether Winn was more concerned with her possible forced marriage—or his own. “Fustian, they’ll never push me in your direction. Not even Mama is so buffleheaded.”
“What, does she think I am too old for you?”
“What does old have to do with Mama’s plans? Mr. Frye was ages older than Inessa. Besides, you’re not too old. I am too young. Too unschooled and unpolished for a top-of-the-trees gentleman like you. Mama will be the first to tell you.”
So she didn’t think he was too old? The viscount’s waistcoat buttons nearly popped, his chest swelled so. He started walking again, Glory’s hand still in his. “But she must have noticed how we’ve become friends. Won’t she hope for more?”
Irma sighed. “Not Mama. She’ll realize that with Iselle gone and Inessa promised, we are thin of company. She’ll thank you for being amused by her harum-scarum adolescent.”
Winn was amazed again at Glory’s lack of vanity. Hadn’t anyone ever told her she was beautiful? And would she believe him if he said it? “In truth I am amused with your company, entertained by your charm and wit, and knocked cock-a-hoop by one of your smiles.”
Which, of course, restored that glorious grin, dimples and all. “Flummery, sir, but I accept the compliments all the same. Nevertheless, Mama has made her choice for me. Algernon Thurkle. Squire’s son.” She took her hand back.
“What? That cawker? I could cut him out with my eyes closed. Shower you with flattery, strew flowers in your path, write sonnets to your dimples.”
Irma laughed at the absurdity of the nonpareil at her side making such a cake of himself over a hobbledehoy female. “And leave me the bobbing-block of the neighborhood when you leave, with Squire Thurkle and Papa still dickering over how many acres make a proper dowry. No thank you.”
“But I want to help. Or is there someone you prefer waiting in the wings?”
“No, but I can discourage Algie’s suit in a snap. He’s hunt-mad, just like most of the gentlemen in the neighborhood, and not half inclined to wed yet anyway. I only have to disrupt his sport again to make sure he cries off.”
“Again?”
“You cannot think I approve of what they do to the poor fox?” Earnest green eyes looked beseechingly into his brown ones, and Viscount Wingate swore off fox hunting on the instant.
“Ah, what then? I mean, once you dispose of the unlamented Algernon, is there some totally ineligible beau you mean to spring on Lady Bannister when she is desperate? A highwayman, perhaps, or a hog butcher? I know, a lawyer.”
“Silly, I don’t have any beaux.”
“Then you’ll be coming to London to devastate the ranks of bachelors?” he asked hopefully. Not that he hoped she’d catch the eye of every Buck and Blood on the lookout for an incomparable, but that she’d get a chance to spread her wings out of her sisters’ shadows. She should have the chance to know her mind, make her own choice, he thought. He also thought that was deuced noble of him.
Irma hadn’t really considered what would happen after she rid herself of the Thurkle toad…or after his lordship left. “Mama swears she’ll never go to London again, and positively not with me in tow. I suppose she’ll ship me off to Nessie or Ellie, once they are settled, to be the doting aunt.” She shrugged. “No matter. I do not intend to marry.”
Winn chuckled in a superior manner. “You are young, Glory. You’ll change your mind when you meet the man of your dreams.”
There was hardly a chance of that happening, she thought despondently, not twice.
*
Baron Bannister’s big day had arrived. He was strutting about the courtyard like a cockerel in his scarlet hunt jacket, greeting friends and neighbors, getting in the way of the grooms bringing the horses and the servants handing around stirrup cups. The day was overcast and blustery, but not too inhospitable for the hunt. Never that. Finally everyone was mounted, the horn was ready to be blown. Bannister ordered that the keeper be signaled to release the hounds.
Nothing. The horses grew restive and unruly. The baron sent another servant around to the kennels. Nothing. “Thunderation!” he bellowed, and kicked his horse onto the track leading behind the stables. Many of the assembled riders followed.
At the kennels, only two excited young pups bounded toward the horses, getting underfoot and causing at least one high-strung gelding to unseat its rider. Fat old Bridey heaved herself up and plodded out to greet the party.
“What the hell?” Bannister muttered as he dismounted by a ring of kennel men, grooms and two whippers-in who were nudging, coaxing, cajoling the rest of the hounds to get to their feet. His dogs, his prize black and gold hunting pack, were asleep! If not asleep, they were barely awake, tongues lolling out of the sides of their mouths, tails barely managing a thump or two. And they
all had bloated bellies. Some rascal, everyone agreed, some spoilsport, fox-loving, bleeding-heart rascal had feasted the pack, with drugged meat. Most of the neighbors knew exactly which rascal it had to be, the same one who put pepper on the trails and unstopped the earths. They rode off, laughing, at Squire Thurkle’s invitation to get up a good ride at his place. He could guarantee the dogs were eager for a run, Squire crowed, for he’d never let that minx of Bannister’s next or nigh his hounds, his horses, or his sons.
Lord Bannister wasn’t laughing. Red-faced, he made his way to the stables, followed by a few disappointed huntsmen and some smirking grooms who came to gather the mounts from the house-guests who decided not to follow the hunt so far a distance on such an inclement day. Lord Wingate dismounted and led Toledo after the others.
“Irmagard Snodgrass!” he could hear Lord Bannister bellow. “Get out here now.”
Irma stepped from her mare’s stall, straw on her skirt, her curls tumbled down her back, but her chin thrust upward as she faced her father across the stable aisle. “I am right here, Papa, you needn’t shout.”
Bannister was so angry, words stuck in his throat. “Did…did you…?” He slapped his riding crop against his booted leg in frustration.
Irma’s arms were crossed defiantly across her chest. “Did I feed the hounds and lace their meat with laudanum? You know I did. You needn’t worry about the dogs; I was very careful with the dosages. I couldn’t be sure with the puppies or old Bridey, so I just fed them, with no drugs.”
“How in God’s name could you do such a thing, miss?” he thundered. “Just tell me how?”
“How not?” she answered. “Fox hunting is barbaric, and so is this practice of handing your daughters over willy-nilly to the first available man. Or boy, like Algernon Thurkle. I got rid of him, didn’t I?”
“Oh, that you did, missy. He’ll never be back, nor half my friends and neighbors! And willy-nilly is it? I haven’t seemed to hand my daughters over to anyone I want. First a rake, then a cleric. That’s not who I chose for sons-in-law. And I begin to see your hand in all of this, you misbegotten brat. Why, if your mother wasn’t such a coldhearted woman, I’d swear she played me false, to beget such an unnatural child!”
Irma noticed the grooms and others moving around the stable, not nearly out of hearing. “Papa,” she began.
“Don’t you try to turn me up sweet now, you impossible baggage. Hand you over to any man I want? Why, I’ll hand you over to the first man who asks, with good riddance to you and good luck to him!”
“You cannot mean that, Papa. You are just angry at missing your hunt. Look, it’s coming on to rain anyway.”
Maybe Thurkle’s dogs would lose the scent in the wet. That didn’t calm the baron’s fury a jot. Now they’d all sit around the fire over at the manor house, joking about Bannister’s drugged dogs and devil-ridden daughter. A laughing-stock, that’s what she’d made him. “Too late, missy, too late. I’ll offer your hand to the first man who asks you to dance at your mother’s ball. Aye, and I’ll throw in that extra parcel of land I was going to add to Inessa’s dowry, to sweeten the pot. She won’t need it, and the poor bastard who gets you will. The first unmarried man, do you hear, missy? And you’ll be there, Irmagard, or I’ll drag you by your hair. And you’ll dance, by Jupiter, for you sure as hell won’t be sitting down.”
“Papa, you wouldn’t!”
He would.
The second time Lord Bannister’s riding crop whistled through the air Winn knocked over a bucket in ’Ledo’s stall, then cursed. Loudly. He kicked the wooden bucket noisily, just for insurance. The baron stormed past him, shouting at the grooms. The viscount waited for the stable hands to busy themselves with their chores, then he sought out the far, unused stall where a slim figure stood shaking.
He walked in and called “Glory?” She turned away, but he gathered her into his arms anyway, and held her as she sobbed against his chest. He tried to smooth back the damp tendrils of her hair, saying “Hush, Glory, hush, sweetheart.” She kept crying. When he felt the moisture seep through his shirtfront to his skin, he cursed and gave her a shake. “Blast, why did you have to stand here and admit the whole thing? I swear you’ve got more bottom than brains!”
“And a sore bottom to prove it,” she mumbled against his lapels before raising a tear-streaked face. “But I had to make sure Algie and his father got a disgust of me.”
Winn took out his handkerchief and wiped at the dampness. “You succeeded then, in aces. You’d think they were made to miss their suppers for a month instead of one day’s sport. You silly chit, though, why couldn’t you just have told that chaw-bacon no? Or let me warn him off for you?”
“You would have done that for me?”
“Of course. We’re friends.”
She took his handkerchief and blew her nose, a loud, unladylike honk that made him smile. “Thank you,” she said when she was finished. “I’ve never had such a friend.” She looked away, shaking out her skirts. “I suppose I’ve made a rare mull of it now, haven’t I? Every gull-groper and basket-scrambler will be scurrying to dance with Lord Bannister’s hey-go-mad heiress.” She waved her hand around the stable. “I’m sure the servants and guests will have spread the word to every fortune hunter for miles around that Papa will come down heavy for anyone taking me off his hands.”
“Algie?”
“No, he wouldn’t take me now if Papa threw in the home woods, three tenant farms, and his best sow. Algie does love his dogs. Oh, I’ll die of mortification!”
“Perhaps your father will change his mind. He wasn’t thinking clearly at the time,” Winn understated.
“No, Mama won’t let him. She’ll have spasms for sure after this ruckus, afraid she’ll have me on her hands forever. She’ll be too embarrassed to take me about, and Ellie is going on her honeymoon, and Nessie’s going to visit Kelvin’s parents, so she cannot even ship me off to either of them!” Irma started weeping again.
Winn opened his arms and she stepped into his embrace, dampening the other side of his shirt-front. He held her close anyway, stroking her back. “Hush, little one, it will be all right. Trust me.”
7
Lord and Lady Bannister opened the ball with the first dance, as was customary. As was also customary with the couple, they spent as little time as possible in each other’s company. After a few bars of music, the baron signaled the hired orchestra to stop playing. He held up his hand and announced his daughter Inessa’s betrothal to their own Kelvin Allbright, after which Nessie and her vicar took the floor. While the happy couple danced by themselves, servants circulated with glasses of champagne. Irma snared one off a passing tray, downed it, and reached for another. Lady Bannister slapped her hand away and dragged her out from behind the potted fern to stand with the family for the toasts.
Then they were mobbed with well-wishers, Lady Bannister’s cronies, Nessie’s friends, neighborhood churchgoers. Irma managed to toss down another glass of champagne during the congratulations, which lasted through two more sets. Nessie was swept off by one of her disappointed suitors, and Lord Bannister took Kelvin off to meet some of the London guests. Irma was left standing at her mother’s side, in full view of the entire ballroom.
Mama was smiling and nodding to the guests, accepting compliments on the ball and on Inessa’s good fortune. Irma was smiling—Mama pinched the flesh between her long white glove and her puffed white lutestring sleeve every time she didn’t—and wishing she had another glass of champagne. Actually, she wished she had a glass of hemlock.
They all knew, of course. She could tell by the way the young women tittered and the older women avoided meeting her eyes. The men were worse, inspecting her as if she were on the block at Tattersall’s. She could almost see them tabulating her dowry versus the trouble she was bound to cause. To the other side of the ballroom, Master Thurkle was waving his hands in her direction, most likely telling his chums about one hunt-hampering hobble after another. Bless you, Algie, s
he thought for the first time in her life, for telling them what an uncomfortable, prickly wife she’d make.
There were other knots of men standing around between dances, glancing at her and laughing with their friends. They were likely laying wagers on who’d be fool enough to ask her to stand up, or who needed her father’s blunt that badly. That loose screw with the dingy neck cloth and the frayed sleeves couldn’t be too particular. Nor could some of the fops headed for the library where card tables had been set up. Lose a fortune there, gain one back on the dance floor, what? Sooner or later one of the dirty dishes would approach her, even if it took a few more glasses of champagne for him to get up the nerve.
Maybe she could manage to tear a flounce. That would postpone her doom for a dance or two. Unfortunately, the white lutestring was in the simple Greek style, with nary a ruffle, flounce, or demi-train to get caught under her foot, no matter how hard she tried.
“Stop squirming, Irmagard. I don’t mind them assuming your attics are to let; I shan’t permit them to think you have body lice.”
Then again, one more glass of champagne might do the trick. Her head already felt thick and muzzy. Not even Mama could expect her to stay in the ballroom when she might cast up her accounts on the hapless soul who’d dragged his courage to the sticking point. Irma giggled at the thought.
“Well, I am glad to see you are no longer in the doldrums over this contretemps,” a voice spoke into her ear while Lady Bannister greeted another well-wisher. Irma turned and smiled. She couldn’t help herself, Lord Wingate looked so superior. His coat was midnight blue trimmed with silver that made the silver in his hair look even more distinguished, and he had a diamond in his starched cravat. “Good evening, my lord. Actually, I think the champagne has more to do with restoring my humor than anything. Would you be so kind as to procure me another glass?”
Autumn Glory and Other Stories Page 5
