Chapter Ten
For the first few days after what the servants at Avanoll House dubbed “The Big Fuss,” everyone tiptoed about the great mansion in Grosvenor Square as if they were treading on eggshells.
With some very noticeable exceptions.
Lady Emily, while outwardly demure and subdued, was often closeted with her maid, heads together. Such occurrences usually presaged one of Emily’s mad schemes and would have warned enlightened observers that trouble loomed heavy in the future. But any likely observers had other things on their minds.
Aunt Lucinda, once informed of Tansy’s latest disgrace, waxed eloquent on several topics, dealing mainly with ingratitude, knowing one’s place, the perfidy of man’s best friend, and the decline of Greece, the last of which seemed unrelated to the subject at hand, but it was a thought no one felt inclined to pursue.
Nothing was known of the reactions of the two principal participants in the fracas. Tansy refused to speak of the incident at all, and the only outward change to be seen was the increasing amount of time she spent secluded in her room—where Horatio was being given instruction in the behavior expected of canines who had so far twice mistaken the Duke’s bedpost for a tree trunk and selected Aunt Lucinda’s satin bedspread as a repository for his bones and other treasures.
Little, too, can be told about the Duke, a sorely used man who invariably found his cravats overstarched, his eggs underdone, and his bedroom fire either meager or damply smoking, or both. No need to ask who the servants judged guilty in the affair.
Sad to say, but true, Avanoll—a man judged quite unflappable in Parliament, termed intrepid in the hunt, and hailed as a noted wit in the company of his fellows—was at a loss when it came to dealing with women and servants. Indeed, he had ignored his staff and avoided feminine entanglements all his life.
He was neither prepared nor anxious for a showdown now, so in the end he took the line of least resistance. He absented himself from his own home as frequently as he could, and for as long as he dared. He was, when he thought deeply about it, ashamed of his cowardice. But he did not alter his course. He saw the constant ribbings his friends gave him about the exploit as fitting punishment for his faintheartedness.
The dowager, who had lived longer and seen more than anyone else in the household, considered the brouhaha to be a huge comedy. Granted, Tansy had had a lucky escape, for she could have been socially destroyed. Granted, Ashley had some valid reasons for climbing on his high horse.
But the dowager felt her grandson’s outraged sense of ton was not his only tender spot, and that he was also suffering from a bad case of nose-out-of-joint-edness. It was not that unpleasant to witness his discomfort. Truly, things were developing along quite interesting lines, so the aging intriguer thought, and she was content for the moment to sit back and watch the sport.
Yet, unbelievably, one member of the Duke’s household—though ever mindful to keep birch twigs tucked in his hatband so as to ward off Tansy’s Evil Eye—had been made almost jubilant by his master’s latest tangle with Miss Tamerlane. Farnley, the Avanoll’s live-in doomsday prophet, was almost disgustingly delighted by the materialization of the heavy run of bad luck he had predicted Tansy’s presence would precipitate.
Hadn’t the lady arrived on a Monday—a day everyone knows to mean danger if a person in the household sneezes twice before breakfast? And hadn’t the Duke been too liberal peppering his eggs that very morning (so unusual a lapse for the master), so that two very loud and distinct sneezes were to be heard ringing through the breakfast room? Farnley knew the way of things, he did, and from the moment Miss Tamerlane had set foot in the door later that same day, he had been fearing the worst.
If only the Duke would agree to the wearing of the blue beads Farnley knew would protect the innocent from the Evil Eye! But, no, the Duke had merely laughed and tossed the beads into a corner. He wasn’t laughing now, thought the valet. Perhaps if he put the beads where his master could see them he would have second thoughts on the matter.
Yet amulets and domestic contretemps not withstanding, time was marching on toward the opening of the Season—with still so much to be accomplished before the young women of Avanoll House were ready to make their debuts.
It was in partial remedy to this situation that the women of the household were today hard at work in the dust-sheeted ballroom.
“No, no, no! My dear gel, you are not, I repeat, not to take such gargantuan strides. This is a waltz, the epitome of grace and beauty. You are to float in your partner’s arms as a fairy drifts across a meadow of daisies.” The dowager’s voice dipped to a mannish lowness to emphasize her point. “You look like a farmer wading through his cow pasture and trying not to trod in anything.”
As the dowager spoke, her granddaughter—who sat curled up daintily in a window seat—bit on her handkerchief in order to hold back her giggles while Tansy, flushed with frustration and feeling very little the fairy and very much like a knock-kneed pachyderm, threw down her dancing partner (a housemaid’s rush broom) with a resounding slam.
“Try if you can to come to grips with the obvious, your grace,” Tansy implored, stretching out her arms to her tutor-cum-tormentor. “I am a hopeless case. The country dances and the rest are all well and good—I rarely will come close enough to my partners to risk maiming them—but I am never going to master this blasted waltzing. I cannot even take to the floor with a broom, who I might add does not lead with much authority. Besides, I am to chaperon Emily, am I not? And chaperons do not waltz,” she ended with conviction.
The dowager sighed and repeated her arguments for, she fervently hoped, the last time. “My dear Tansy, chaperons don’t usually dance, I agree. But you are so young, and so well-known—although my grandson probably would say notorious,” she added as an aside, “since you rescued that beastly mutt Horatio, that you are sure to be asked to stand up for the waltz any number of times. You are moderately proficient in the milder dances, but in the waltz you must be more than adequate. You must be flawless. A partner suddenly yelping in pain because you have blundered onto his instep is not a happening to be thought of as anything less than a capital sin. And,” she added without a hope of being heeded, “ladies do not say ‘blasted.’”
At the end of this homily the old lady signaled to Emily that it was time for some musical accompaniment to the spoken “one-two-three, one-two-three” cadence they had been calling out for the past half-hour, and Emily dutifully approached the spinet.
Tansy looked mutinous for a moment, then sighed and picked up Sir Humphrey—her fortunately footless partner. As Emily began playing, Tansy curtsied mockingly to the broom and commenced whirling about the Avanoll ballroom once more. “One-two-three,” she said addressing the broom before launching into an example of the light conversational drivel she was told must accompany her steps.
“Yes, thank you, I am enjoying the Season above all things, one-two-three, how kind of you to ask,” she breathed as she batted her eyelashes at the spikey shafts that made up her partner’s head. As she completed one turn of the room and neared the dowager, she could resist no longer and pointed out impishly, “I wager you have the devil’s own time finding a willing tailor, Sir Humphrey, one-two-three. Are we to see you at the opera tomorrow night, one-two-three? Those foreign howlers are such bores! They make it impossible to hold a decent conversation at times with their bellowing, one-two-three, but everyone attends, and what one cannot abjure one must endure, one-two-three. I always say.”
Both the dowager and Emily burst into laughter, and once again the broom clattered loudly to the polished oak floor. This time the unfairly condemned Sir Humphrey was further insulted by a well-placed kick that sent him skidding through the open double doors and into the foyer, where he came to an ignominious halt against one glossy, black Hessian boot.
A few seconds later Sir Humphrey re-entered the ballroom, this time held grudgingly in the grasp of his grace, the Duke. He advanced purposefully toward h
is cousin, who was now standing with arms akimbo in the middle of the floor, daring him to say something cutting.
“Your broom, cousin,” he offered solemnly. “I take it the naughty thing has offended you in some way? Did it make untoward advances on your virtue, or was it simply a case of mutual disenchantment? Perhaps you are unfair to the poor thing, judging it at fault when in truth you are not using it correctly.” His lips twitched in barely concealed mirth as he dug the needle more firmly home. “I am convinced if you but put a leg over it the thing will oblige you by flying you anywhere you wish to go.”
Emily looked vacant for a moment, then clapped her hands and cried gaily, “Oh, Tansy, Ashley is saying you are a witch! Isn’t that right, Grandmama? I am right, aren’t I?” she added as silence greeted her words.
The dowager shot daggers at her granddaughter and was about to insist her grandson apologize when Tansy replied warmly, “You are correct, Emily. That is exactly what your brother implied. And he is quite correct. Indeed, l am a witch. As you can all see, I have already turned a Duke into a toad. Some other witch before my time made some inroads on making him a boor and a bully, so I fear I cannot take all the credit. But since my parlor tricks so amuse you, Emily, stay around a bit and I’ll see if I can capture the Duke’s true character and transform him into a poisonous toadstool. At least then we shan’t have to listen to him croak.”
“Bested you, grandson,” her grace pointed out with a chuckle. “Care to try again? Emily do be quiet. I swear you cackle like a hen laying a three-pound egg.” She directed her next words back to the man now balefully glaring at his cousin, who was balefully glaring back. “Ashley, your services are required here for approximately one hour,” she announced in a tone that brooked no argument.
The Duke gave Tansy one last searing look and turned to his grandparent. “I am terribly afraid I must disoblige you, madam. I am due at Cribb’s in a few minutes,” he inserted without much hope of being excused.
“Splendid. You can do much the same here as you would there. The footwork doesn’t vary all that much, and you can toss verbal punches instead of real ones. Not to say you’ll come off any less bruised. Our Tansy is a proper right ’un, you know, when it comes to sparring and, leveling, er, wisty castors.”
The Duke was at a loss. “I do not wish to play dance master to any lead-footed miss who cannot even caper about with inanimate objects without accident, Grandmama. And,” he added darkly, “I must question your sources on the knowledge of fisticuffs and boxing cant.”
The dowager explained happily. “Tansy has witnessed a mill or two in her earlier years, and has kindly explained all sorts of things—like uppercutting and boneboxes and the like.” The Duke’s eyes rolled in mock horror. “What we require now is a dancing partner for Tansy,” the dowager continued. “It is impossible to capture the correct mood and rhythm with a broomstick.”
Any amusement the Duke experienced at his grandmother’s inelegant interest in boxing evaporated in the heat of his indignation. “I repeat. I’ll be damned if I’ll dance with her,” he exploded angrily. “Every time I come within ten feet of the chit, disaster strikes.”
“And I’ll be damned if I’d let him within twenty feet of me!” Tansy retorted hotly. The two returned to glaring at each other.
“The children are squabbling again, Grandmama,” Emily supplied facetiously. “Shall we send them to bed without their porridge?”
“Stow it, brat,” her brother warned her. “You are not too old to be spanked.”
Emily promptly burst into tears.
“Don’t include an innocent infant in our quarrel,” Tansy threatened. “She has always looked to you, her so tonnish, perfect brother, for guidance in how to go on. She only follows your sterling example.”
“That will be enough, from all of you,” the dowager pronounced coldly when it appeared the scene before her was about to degenerate into violence. “Tansy, you are to master waltzing and you are to master it today. If Dunstan knew the steps we would not have to make use of Ashley, who is only a mediocre dancer in any case.”
Avanoll’s head jerked up at this calumny.
“Ashley, as your grandmother, and a frail old woman sorely tried in her declining years and worthy of better than she is receiving, and as a woman fully capable of making your life a veritable hell if she so chooses, I must insist you resign yourself to partnering your cousin. Emily, you may accompany them when you have done with those crocodile tears. They may work on Lucinda, but they’ll cut no wheedle with me.”
Emily moved to the spinet and stood there. “Well,” coaxed the dowager, “sit down.”
“Oh, did you want me to play?” Emily questioned blankly.
“No, I just thought you could see better from there. I am going to hum the tune in German.”
Emily giggled. “Grandmama, you are so droll!”
The dowager shook her head. “That gel is such a ninny,” she told the room in general. “I truly believe my late daughter-in-law played my son false. No son of mine could have sired such an airhead.”
Lady Emily, who cast herself as a blameless innocent in a harsh world, born into a family of vile-tongued creatures whose blood contained not one drop of sensibility, patted carefully at the two tears she had produced on demand and began pounding out a technically correct tune in a belligerent military march tempo.
The two combatants—dancers—eyed each other warily and assumed their battle—waltzing—stations. Tansy laid her hand lightly in Avanoll’s outstretched palm and gingerly placed her other hand on his broad, unpadded shoulder. Avanoll closed his hand just enough to keep their arms angled correctly and grasped her surprisingly small waist in a wary hold.
They started slowly, feeling each other out as fighters in the ring, Tansy mentally monitoring her steps and the Duke slowly counting to ten to cool his temper. From her chair halfway across the room the dowager admonished them to stop looking like they were dancing their way to Tyburn and the gibbet, and further directed her grandson to give Tansy some practice in the art of pleasant conversation while dancing.
Actually, Avanoll found himself not as averse to partnering his cousin as his countenance implied. After a few false steps she seemed to find the correct rhythm, and in point of fact was as light on her feet as the petite Emily. This after he had expected her to try and lead him around the floor. He tightened his hold, shortening the distance between them to a still proper but more intimate degree, and his nostrils caught the light flowery scent of her newly-washed hair. He wouldn’t delude himself into thinking he was enjoying himself, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain his earlier anger. “I see no problem in your form, cousin. Perhaps the old dragon was just pushing you too hard.”
Tansy had never been in such close proximity to a man before and was finding the experience quite heady. She had no wish to antagonize Avanoll again and cut short her enjoyment. She didn’t answer for a moment or two, and then thanked him prettily for his appraisal of her expertise—which she disclaimed credit for, suggesting the adeptness of her current partner over Sir Humphrey.
Puzzled, the Duke asked who this Sir Humphrey could be. Again her answer was slightly delayed, and then she informed him with a grin, “You were not properly introduced, I know, but he quite threw himself at your feet a few minutes ago, begging sanctuary.”
Avanoll tossed back his head and laughed, then asked why she was delaying her answers. “Perhaps civility to me comes hard, and your words must first be carefully screened in your mind,” he suggested.
For the first time he was treated to the sight of a very flattering blush on his cousin’s face. “I could not reply in the middle of my counting. I answered you as soon as I reached three. You wouldn’t want me to tread on your toes, would you?”
Again the Duke’s laughter rang out, and the dowager and Emily exchanged sly looks. See, their eyes said, if we but persevere they will cry friends yet. At least that was the extent of Emily’s hopes. Her grac
e’s aspirations went considerably higher, but there was no need to rush her fences. There was plenty of time for mother nature and herself to work their combined wiles. If not, a well-engineered compromise or two should do the trick. I’d lock ’em up together in the conservatory for a sen’night to force a marriage, she told herself smugly, if I didn’t believe they’d pelt each other to flinders with the oranges.
Emily put a gentler, more romantic tone into her playing as her mood improved, and the dancers matched her by whirling and swaying with increasing confidence. The Duke’s hand tightened on Tansy’s waist and she responded unwittingly by holding more firmly to his ungloved hand. As they neared the far end of the dance floor the Duke spoke again. “Are you still counting, my dear?”
Tansy’s head snapped up at his use of this casual intimacy, and she blushed again as she assured him she had stopped counting some time ago.
“Good,” he answered with an accompanying wink. “Then what say we give the old girl a little exhibition?” With Tansy’s form gently but firmly in his control, he swept them into a series of turns that billowed out her muslin skirts and brought a smile of pure enjoyment to her face. Round and round the floor they glided, their eyes locked together as their bodies moved as if in silent communion.
The dowager signaled to her granddaughter and the two rose and stole silently from the room. Once outside the old lady shook her head at Emily. “Close your gaping mouth before a moth finds its home in your molars, and hie your precious self out of the path of destiny.”
“Whatever do you mean?” Emily gasped.
The dowager sighed and gave the girl a none-too-gentle shove toward the stairs. The dowager then went off to the morning room, where she raised her eyes heavenward and addressed her departed husband. “Dearest, surely your grandson is not so stiff and proper as to pass up a golden opportunity like this. Or worse yet, so dull-witted as not to recognize it as such. Ah, but then he couldn’t be your offspring and be such a slowtop, could he, my dear?” She gave a sly wink, then, unbelievably, the old lady’s cheeks blushed a faint pink at a long-forgotten, sweet memory.
She recovered herself quickly, cast her eyes about to be sure she had not been overheard, and returned to the foyer, quietly closing the double doors to the ballroom as she went. Horatio sidled up to her and she tersely commanded him to “sit,” which he did, and to “stay,” which he had every intention of doing even if it meant missing his dinner, since his beloved mistress was still behind those closed doors, and lastly, to “guard,” which he did not quite understand, but then two out of three wasn’t really so bad for a pup as young as he.
Almost before the dowager was out of sight, Horatio, head comfortably settled on his outstretched paws, was sound asleep, dreaming of his mistress’ ecstasy-producing talent of scratching that one unreachable spot behind his left ear.
The Tenacious Miss Tamerlane Page 10
