Amanda Scott (20 page)

“May I have the honor, Miss Hardy?”

His mother, seated next to Carolyn on one of the gilt chairs lining the walls of the room, frowned and said sharply, “Why do you address her so? I cannot recall your ever doing so before.”

“Can you not, Mama?” He smiled at Carolyn. “Well, ma’am? You do not answer me.”

The dowager snapped, “Don’t be foolish. Of course, she will dance. She has danced only with old men and Alvanley tonight. She does nothing to form an eligible attachment.”

“Poor Caro,” Sydney said as he guided her with a light touch to their place in the set. The waltz, being neither so slow nor so stately as the minuet that had preceded it, was a gliding dance better suited to a more highly polished floor, and for some moments Carolyn had to concentrate on her steps, until she had adapted her movements to the uncertain surface. She had heard of a new version of the dance, performed on the Continent and even sometimes in London, where the gentleman held his partner in a near embrace throughout. Looking now at Sydney and finding his warm gaze upon her, she wondered if she would like to dance that way and decided, blushing, that she would like it very much.

He smiled at her just then and she blushed more deeply and looked away, then started when he linked his arm with hers for the allemande. When the music ended and she turned to look for the dowager, Sydney said quietly, “I had hoped you would join me for supper, but I suppose you are promised to someone else.”

“No,” she confessed. “No one.” She had been asked twice but had not thought she would wish to stay downstairs so late.

He tucked her hand into the crook of his arm, and suddenly Carolyn was not sure she wanted to go with him, since the fact that he had said nothing yet about her part in the afternoon’s events did not mean he would remain silent forever. But she could not simply pull her hand away and leave him. Deciding that they would probably join other friends, so there would be no opportunity for private conversation, she went with him quietly, only to be dismayed when he led her through the crowd to a quiet corner table and signed to a footman to serve them there.

As Carolyn took her seat, watching him warily, Sydney smiled and said, “I hope you don’t mind. I have had enough chatter already tonight to last me a lifetime.”

With a mixture of profound relief and quite unexpected disappointment, she said, “It is all the same to me, I suppose.”

“What is it, Caro? Oh, thank you,” he added when a footman placed plates laden with food before each of them. “We’ll have wine, I think.” Then, when the man had gone and she still had not spoken, he said, “Well? Are you not speaking to me?”

She managed a smile. “On the contrary, sir. I know you must be angry with me, and I have been waiting rather uncomfortably to hear what you will say to me.”

He was silent for a long moment, and she knew by his expression that she had surprised him. Then he said, “I was vexed, certainly, though I thought I had concealed it. It cannot be necessary for me to tell you, you behaved unwisely.”

Without thinking, and rather sharply, she said, “Do you only do what is necessary, Sydney?”

“I have found ’tis the best way,” he replied. “To do only what is necessary—no more, no less than that.”

For reasons she could not have explained to herself, let alone to him, his reply incensed her to speechlessness. She glared at him, and the arrival of the footman with their wine only irritated her more. When the man had gone, she drank thirstily before resolutely turning her attention to her plate, determined to ignore Sydney. Moments later, when another footman passed by with a wine bottle, she finished what was left in her glass before signing to him to refill it.

“You will intoxicate yourself again if you drink so quickly,” Sydney said gently when the man had gone.

“And if I do, ’twill be because I wish to do so and for no other reason,” she retorted. “Therefore I daresay you will make no effort to stop me.”

“No, Caro, I won’t stop you.”

Irrationally, she snapped, “You would have stopped me when I was a child!”

“But you are no longer a child,” he said, “and I have not the least desire to treat you like one.”

The last words came out in an odd tone, almost a growl, making her feel a little foolish but, at the same time, stirring feelings within her that had never stirred before. She stared at him as she tried to sort out her emotions, then said, finally, “I do not think I understand you, sir.”

“Would you understand better”—there was a distinct edge to his voice now—“if I were to insist that you cease your flirting, perhaps avoid entirely the company of such men as Cumberland, Lyndhurst, even Manningford, until you learn to behave properly?”

Her eyes widened as resentment rose swiftly within her. “No, I wouldn’t,” she said tartly. “You do not have that right, sir. Indeed, this conversation is foolish and I cannot think why I stay to talk to you.” Glaring, she arose from her chair.

“Sit down, Carolyn.”

She nearly obeyed on the instant, so startled was she by the snap in his voice, but she caught herself and, straightening, lifted her brows in what she hoped was a fair imitation of his own manner of silent inquiry.

He responded with a wry smile. “Please sit down. I will apologize. I can’t imagine why I allow you to exasperate me as you do, for anyone would think that if Mama can no longer take a rise out of me, you could not do so, either.”

Oddly reassured by these words, she sat down, and when the music began again, they parted as friends. She did not speak with him again that night, but by the time she retired to her bed, she had replayed in her mind’s eye every minute of their time together, hearing each word he had spoken and every reply she had made. This mild exercise only confused her all the more.

No more than she could explain why his failure to scold her had rankled could she explain her instant resentment when he had dared, mildly, to reprove her. She didn’t want him to be angry. But if he was angry, she wanted him to tell her so. On the other hand, she didn’t want to hear it when he did tell her so. Very little time spent with such thoughts as these was sufficient to make her bury her head in her pillow, deciding that further such contemplation was no more than pavement on the road to madness.

The following day, she awoke late to the news that the Regent was ill and a large number of the guests departing. Lady Skipton insisted at first that his illness had nothing to do with them, but by three o’clock, when it had become obvious that the duchess was no longer interested in visiting with those guests who had remained, her ladyship informed the rest of her party that she was ready to leave at once for Bathwick Hill House. They traveled to Maidenhead that day, finishing their journey late Saturday evening.

Since the weather was clement, Sydney rode, and there was no opportunity on the road or at the inn in Maidenhead for Carolyn to speak privately with him. When they reached Bath she went straight to bed, and the following day, they household returned to its normal routine. Sydney had numerous duties to attend to each day that kept him busy until midafternoon, when he generally disappeared for two hours before dinner.

Carolyn saw little of him. She was still smarting emotionally, and since there was no one to whom she could unburden herself, her guilt increased until she was certain that he must despise her for a fool. Telling herself that he could not know she had learned her lesson, and determined to show him that she had, she decided that henceforward she would behave with irreproachable propriety. There would be no more incidents like the one in the grotto, for she could be as proper as anyone if she set her mind to it.

With this end in view, she exerted herself to be of assistance by bearing the dowager company and by making herself generally useful instead of spending her days as she had before—idly reading, riding, walking in the gardens, or writing letters to her friends. She helped Miss Pucklington with those chores the dowager was constantly finding for her to perform and even assisted Maggie in finding glue to mend the hat she wore with her blue riding habit. Such virtuous behavior, though wearisome, eased her guilt until newspaper accounts of the Oatlands ball began to appear, and certain rumors began to fly.

Lady Skipton announced at supper a week after the ball that she feared for the future of the Empire.

Miss Pucklington gasped. “Good gracious, Cousin Olympia, whatever has happened?”

“Why, the Regent is proving to be as mad as the King, that is what,” the dowager said. “What we are coming to in this country, I cannot think, to be at the mercy of a royal family tainted by madness. My father would not have approved, and nor, I can tell you, Sydney, would your father have done.”

Sydney had been placidly eating, but thus addressed, he replied gently, “I must suppose that you have this information on excellent authority, ma’am.”

“Well, certainly. I have it directly from Lady Lucretia Calverton, who had it from her niece in London, who had it from Lady Bessborough, who had it, I am certain, directly from the Queen. Surely, Sydney, if you’ve heard nothing else, you must have heard about the dreadful things the Regent did while we were at Oatlands.”

“I cannot think of anything he did that was particularly dreadful, ma’am, but no doubt I have mistaken the matter. I pray you will enlighten me.”

“Well, I certainly thought you must have known,” she said with a click of her tongue, “for I saw you myself, talking with the man on at least two separate occasions.”

“He asked my advice several times,” Sydney said. “He does that frequently, and though I had not previously thought it a sign of madness, clearly I am biased, so you must forgive me.”

Carolyn choked back a sudden urge to laugh, but Lady Skipton did not notice, her attention being firmly riveted upon her son as she retorted, “Do not be nonsensical, sir. You know I meant nothing of the sort. And while you may choose to see frivolity in the occasion, there is none, for the Regent has so lost his wits that he grossly insulted Lady Yarmouth and was soundly thrashed by her husband, in consequence. Surely you have heard of the so-called royal indisposition!”

“Certainly,” Sydney said. “But then I—Did you wish to speak, ma’am?” he asked, glancing at Miss Pucklington.

Flustered, she gaped first at him and then at Lady Skipton, whose expression was unencouraging. But when Sydney said gently, “Well, ma’am?” she blinked, then hastily found her tongue.

“I did not mean to intrude,” she said, “but I thought the Regent injured himself when he slipped and hurt his ankle while showing his daughter how to do the Highland fling.”

“That is certainly the substance of what we were told at Oatlands,” Sydney agreed.

“Yes,” Miss Pucklington said in a gratified tone, “and it must have been a gallant effort, you know, for he is such a heavy man and his ankles are known to be weak. According to the
Morning Chronicle
, he opened the ball with the princess, and while they were dancing, his right foot came in contact with the leg of a sofa, and he sprained his ankle; however, I know that was not true, since York danced with her and no furniture was in the way in that huge ballroom. Moreover, we know the Regent did not dance. But surely the truth was printed in the
Morning Post
, for that was the same tale we heard at Oatlands, though perhaps it is not precisely where I read that it was the Highland fling.”

The dowager had not interrupted her but had been regarding her with increasing displeasure, and said now, “Really, Judith, I cannot think when you have time to read all the newspapers, but it is not at all becoming in you to do so when there are more important matters to which you might be attending. I do not ask you to do very much, certainly, and I should think that you—”

“Godmama,” Carolyn blurted, “I heard the same thing at Oatlands, and I saw the article in the
Morning Post
, too, so I am persuaded that you must be mistaken about the Regent and Lady Yarmouth. He would never have insulted her, and surely Lord Yarmouth was one of those most often in attendance upon him when it was discovered that he had injured himself more seriously than had previously been thought, and he had taken to his bed.”

“You’ve only to see the broadsides being sold in the streets of Bath to know I am right,” the dowager said firmly. “That was no sprain. Under all that linen, I fancy, his ankle is as healthy as my own. Perhaps you are right about the Yarmouths, however,” she added with an air of giving credit where it was due. “I put little credence in what can be no more than a rumor, since Lady Yarmouth is not likely to attract him when he is still enamored of her mama-in-law. However,” she added as a clincher, “no less a person than the Duke of Cumberland has said the illness has infected a portion of the Regent’s body higher than his foot and that a blister on his head might be more efficacious than the poultice on his ankle. And what will become of us if our Regent, like our King, goes mad? Answer me that!”

No one wished to debate the matter, but although Sydney managed with his usual adroitness to divert her, it was by no means the final word she spoke on the subject. Nor was she the only one to indulge in such interesting speculation. When the Regent remained at Oatlands through the first week of December, spurring one wit to send the newspapers a complex, passionate ode entitled “The Royal Sprain, or a Kick from Yarmouth to Wales,” the rumors flourished anew, and Carolyn thanked Providence that it had been Lady Yarmouth and not herself who had chanced to accompany the Regent’s party back into the house.

By the time Brandon Manningford, thinking the ode an excellent bit of satire, brought Carolyn a copy one rainy afternoon in case she had not yet seen it, she was thoroughly sick of the conjecturing. He had been shown into the library, where he found her alone, reading a book she had previously denied herself in the interests of conspicuous propriety.

“What the devil’s the matter with you?” he demanded when she received his offering with a grimace of distaste.

“It is only that I am sick to death of hearing about poor Prinny’s accident. We were there, you know, and nothing of the sort transpired. Indeed,” she added incautiously, “I believe all the rumors originated with the odious Duke of Cumberland, whose greatest desire in life is to make the Regent look no account.”