An Affair of Honor (12 page)

“I am tired, Grandmama, so I will go straight to bed, if you will both excuse me,” Rory said, stifling a yawn.

“Of course, my dear. I mean to go up myself. ’Tis fatal to one of my delicate constitution to keep late hours. I cannot think how I became so engrossed in my fancywork, for usually, you know, I am fast asleep long before now.”

“I’m sorry if we kept you up, ma’am.”

“No such thing. Nell was here, so I might just as well have gone to bed had the thought occurred. Don’t bother your head, my child. I daresay I shall do well enough.”

Nell listened to this exchange with well-concealed amusement, knowing perfectly well that Lady Agnes kept whatever hours suited her. That that often meant staying up reading or working her petit point until well past midnight was a well-kept secret, however. But since her ladyship was quick to assert that she knew she could not sleep if she tried, even Nell forebore to tease her. Lady Agnes’s delicate constitution, while serving as an excellent excuse whenever she wished to avoid any distasteful duty, rarely interfered with her pleasure.

Rory moved toward the door, but Nell spoke before she reached it. “I should like to have a word with you, dear, if you don’t mind. I shall come to your bedchamber directly.”

“Oh, I should like a comfortable coze above all wings,
dear
Aunt Nell. But as it happens, I have the headache. Only a trifling thing, I promise you, so you needn’t worry about me, but couldn’t we talk just as well tomorrow?”

Nell agreed, although she suspected her niece of laying the sugar on a bit thickly. The next day was Sunday, and they had no pressing plans. Surely there would be a time to have a serious talk.

By the time they had attended services at the Chapel Royal and had entertained no fewer than three afternoon callers, including Mr. Seton, it began to seem as though Sunday would follow the same pattern as Saturday. Nell felt her temper rising, and did not know whether it was out of frustration at her seeming inability to corner her niece or simply because Lord Huntley had been so careless as to fail to number among their afternoon callers. The man simply had to be brought to a stronger sense of his duty toward his intended wife!

Her opportunity to speak to Rory did not occur until the supper table had been cleared and Kit had announced his intention of meeting Harry Seton for a quiet game or two of piquet. Once he had gone, Rory said something about speaking to Jeremy with regard to Ulysses’ supper, and moved toward the doorway, but before she could escape, if indeed that had been her intent, she was stopped in her tracks by her aunt’s voice, sharper than she had yet heard it.

“One moment, my dear.”

Rory turned, her expression one of innocent curiosity. “Yes, Aunt Nell?”

“Once you have dealt with the matter of Ulysses’ supper, I desire that you shall attend me in my sitting room.”

“Of course, ma’am. I had meant to see about—”

“As soon as you have seen to Ulysses, Rory. I shall be waiting.” Nell’s tone brooked no further delay.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Rory fled, and Lady Agnes turned a look of distress upon her daughter. “Dear me, Nell, but you sound nearly cross. What can poor Rory have done in order to deserve a scolding?”

Nell’s features relaxed into a rueful smile. “Did I sound as if I mean to scold her?” Lady Agnes nodded. “Well, perhaps I do at that. Have you listened to her, Mama? She speaks only of her own pleasures and seems to have no regard at all for the fact that she is betrothed to Lord Huntley. And last night she behaved abominably.”

“I thought her a trifle high-spirited, perhaps,” her ladyship acknowledged feebly. “However, I daresay ’tis merely her youth makes her behave so.”

“Stuff,” Nell retorted. “Clarissa and Crossways have spoiled that child to death, and she has not learned to behave like a well-bred lady should behave. ’Twas not mere high spirits that caused her to flirt so outrageously with Harry Seton, and surely you cannot wish her to encourage a friendship with that rattle!”

“Well, no, but truly, Nell, it is most unlike you to be so strict. Do you not think that if Huntley were to pay her a bit more attention, Rory might heed his claims more willingly?”

“Of course I do. You will get no argument on that head, ma’am. I intend to speak to him on that very subject before
he
is much older, too.” With that, Nell got up and went to deal with her niece, scarcely noting her mother’s astonished expression.

Rory entered the small sitting room off Nell’s bedchamber a few moments later looking wary. She greeted her aunt calmly enough, however, and asked what she had done to vex her.

“You haven’t vexed me precisely, dear,” Nell answered, striving to sound fair-minded at the very least. “’Tis merely that I think you do not realize how very easy it is in polite society for a young girl to step beyond the line of being pleasing.”

“I have gone beyond it?”

“Not yet, perhaps. Not really. Although I could not like your manner with Mr. Seton. You were much too forward, I fear, and might easily have caused him to believe you were encouraging his attentions.”

“But I was encouraging them. I like him.”

“That has nothing to do with anything, my dear. You are betrothed to Huntley, you know, and therefore must not encourage others to pay court to you.”

“Oh, Aunt Nell, I never thought you would be so fusty. What harm is there in a simple flirtation? I came to Brighton to find pleasure, and so far I have spent most of my time in the company of persons a good deal older than myself and have done nothing exciting at all. Mr. Seton is, at least, near to my own age, and I thought him perfectly charming.”

“No doubt,” said Nell dryly, “but I daresay his lordship would scarcely approve such a connection.”

“Well, he’s got nothing to say to it!”

“Nothing to say to it!”

“Of course not. He promised, after all, that I should have all the fun of a proper come-out, and I mean to do so. I doubt he will interfere, and I shall take it most unkindly if you do, for you are quite my favorite aunt and would be even if I had more aunts, and it is most unfair to expect me to comport myself as if I was already a prisoner of Huntley Green.”

Nell did what she could to bring her niece to an understanding of the difference between enjoying parties and balls, and behaving in a manner destined to bring shame upon them all, but it could not be said that she enjoyed any very great success in the matter. By the time she dismissed the Lady Aurora to her bedchamber, Nell was exhausted and looked forward to the Castle Inn’s assembly, scheduled for the morrow, with nothing less than a feeling of acute trepidation.

V
IEWED FROM THE OUTSIDE
, the Castle Ballroom, directly across Castle Square from the Marine Pavilion seemed to be nothing more than a tall, rather ordinary red-brick building with arched windows. The interior, however, expressed all the grace and elegance that the architect, Mr. Crundon, had plagiarized—as was his custom—from such masters as Robert Adam and Henry Holland. There were actually four rooms, the principal ones being the ballroom itself and a card room.

The ballroom’s dimensions much impressed Rory, who had seen nothing larger than the assembly rooms at Tunbridge Wells, for the elegant room was eighty feet long, forty feet wide, and forty feet high. Recesses at either end and along one side were framed by the sort of columns Adam favored, with capitals like plain inverted bells with single rows of acanthus leaves, and the walls were decorated with plaster reliefs in panels and medallions, delicate Adamesque moldings, and scroll ornaments. Facing each other above the frieze from opposite ends of the room were elaborate but nonetheless commonplace portraits of Dawn and Night, while the ceiling, a shallow arched vault, was a direct copy of Henry Holland’s design for the subscription room at Brook’s Club in London.

Neither Nell nor her charge had any reason to despise such details, of course, and it was their opinion—as well as that of nearly everyone else in Brighton—that the Castle Ballroom was most elegantly appointed.

Nell had not attended an assembly there since the year of her own come-out, and her first impression of the place, from the anteroom as a haughty footman stepped forward to take their wraps, was that her mother’s friend Mrs. Calvert had had the right of it. The place, besides being much more crowded than she remembered, seemed to contain a vast cross-section of society among the guests.

“Aunt Nell, look at those peculiar women!”

Following the direction of Rory’s astonished gaze toward a group passing through to the ballroom, Nell hid a smile. At least the two women drawing her niece’s attention were not cits’ wives. The first, an enormously fat lady with a vast, undulating bosom, wore an odd, green-striped garment that more nearly resembled a circus tent than an evening gown. Her squat little companion, though wearing a blue gown that was nothing out of the ordinary, had rendered herself quite as much a figure of fun by wearing an inordinate amount of glittering jewelry, including a multitude of bracelets on each of her plump arms, rings that flashed from every finger, plus any number of diamonds and watches pinned to her person.

“The larger of the two,” Nell said diplomatically, in a discreet tone, “is Lady Pomfret. I do not know her scintillating friend.”

Rory giggled and shook her head, but beyond glancing complacently down at her own slim, muslin-clad self and wondering in a low voice if Lady Pomfret meant to astonish the company by dancing, she soon lost interest in the pair, though she continued to cast curious glances hither and yon.

As she preceded Nell into the ballroom, her gaze came suddenly to rest upon a pair of broad, blue-and-gold draped shoulders. Her attention riveted and she actually came to a halt, causing Nell to remind her that there were others behind them and that if they meant to find chairs for themselves along the far wall, it would be best if she kept moving. “Oh, yes, of course,” Rory answered vaguely, narrowing her eyes. “Aunt Nell, do you see that gentleman ahead of us in the Hussar uniform?”

Since a great number of the gentlemen present were wearing if not the scarlet uniform of the King’s Dragoons then the blue and gold of the Prince’s Own Hussars, Nell had all she could do not to laugh at such an absurd question. She managed to preserve the gravity of her countenance, however, and merely requested that her niece indulge her by being more precise in her description.

“The one with the shoulders,” replied Rory helpfully.

“Rory, they all of them have shoulders!”

“Not like his,” declared her niece flatly. “I do like a man with decent shoulders, don’t you, Aunt Nell? ’Tis one of Huntley’s few attributes, I think. But, Aunt Nell, I am persuaded—indeed, I am nearly certain—
that
that is the same extraordinarily handsome young man we met in Donaldson’s on Friday.”

“We did
not
meet him, Rory, and I utterly forbid you to seek him out or in any way to call his attention to yourself,” Nell said hastily, careful to keep her own voice down. “Do you understand me, young lady?”

“But I want to meet him!”

“Then we must try to discover—discreetly, mind you—if we enjoy any mutual acquaintance. But that is all I will allow, and you would do very well to mind me.”

“Very well, ma’am.”

The mournful tone did little to relieve Nell’s mind. With a sigh she thought—and not for the first time—that it would be a deal easier to prevent Rory’s doing something utterly shocking if they had a proper male escort for the evening. To be sure, she had taken courage in hand and had made a strong attempt to persuade Kit that he would find the assembly an amusing pastime. But he had merely laughed at her, reminding her that Rory was her responsibility and recommending with a sad want of civility that she acquire the services of a strict governess if she truly meant to keep the chit out of mischief.

Fearing that Rory would persist in her determination to make the young officer’s acquaintance, Nell did what she could to prevent her from going beyond the line by introducing her to everyone she knew, including several stout matrons who could be trusted to know nearly everyone who
was
anyone. She could not feel, however, that the younger girl had been much impressed by the advice that she cast her bread upon the waters and hope that eventually someone who knew him would present the young Hussar as a desirable partner. Indeed, Nell placed little dependence upon her niece’s patience and was therefore not so surprised as she might have been when, at the end of the second set of country dances, Rory’s innate grace seemed to desert her and she stumbled, falling heavily against a young man who had not been part of her set but who seemed, in fact, to be wending his way toward the exit. Nor was she surprised that the young man was clad in blue and gold, nor by the fact that he possessed a pair of shoulders magnificent enough to have rivaled Huntley’s.

Rory’s partner, a shy young sprig who had already shown distinct signs of being besotted, stepped forward anxiously to assist her, but Rory clung—quite unnecessarily in her aunt’s opinion—to the man she had fallen against. He had reacted quickly enough to keep her from falling to the floor and seemed willing now to set her on her feet again, but Rory appeared to be quite unable to rest any weight upon her right foot. She spoke to the young officer, ignoring her own partner shamelessly, and a few moments later Nell watched with a jaundiced eye as her niece approached, limping, but supported on either side by the two gentlemen. Rory practically quivered with pent-up mischief, the young sprig looked resigned, and the officer shot Nell an apologetic look that nearly caused her to shake her head in a gesture of shared understanding.

He was tall, very likely taller than Huntley, she thought, watching him. His hair, coarsely textured and medium brown in color, was tied back in the regulation pigtail, and he sported the bushy sidewhiskers and thickly curling mustache generally preferred by Hussar officers. His features were regular, and the lines at the sides of his dark brown, heavily-lidded eyes seemed to suggest both an outdoor life and a habit of laughter. He was a nice looking young man, Nell decided, although in her opinion he looked pretty much like any other Hussar officer, and she could not imagine for a moment why Rory should fancy him to be better looking than his lordship.