Barbara Metzger (18 page)

“Ah, Lionel, there you are.”

“I’m sorry, Lady Comstock, ah, Aunt Hattie, but that’s James, and this is Harry.”

“No, not the footmen, dear, the portrait.” Lady Comstock whipped a scrap of lace out of her black crepe sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. “I keep dear Lord Cormstock’s portrait with me so that I don’t feel so alone. Dear Lionel was lofted above ten years ago.”

He’d gone in a hot air balloon? Lisanne didn’t have time to ask the question, for Lady Comstock was making the introductions. “Lionel, dear, this is our new niece, St. Sevrin’s duchess.”

Gracious, Lisanne thought, the lady was as balmy as…as she herself was supposed to be. No wonder Sloane had sent the poor unfortunate widow to Devon for a repairing lease. Lady Comstock was the duke’s aunt, and this was the duke’s house. His wife could do no less than show proper courtesy. The poor thing likely had no one to talk to except a picture of her deceased husband. Besides, perhaps she was as below hatches as the rest of the duke’s connections and had nowhere else to go. “Did you say you preferred to dine at seven, my—Aunt Hattie? I’ll just go notify Cook. There is much for me to be doing about the estate, but I shall be pleased to keep you company in the evenings.”

Lady Comstock went upstairs behind the housekeeper, satisfied for now. The girl was as beautiful as St. Sevrin had claimed. Those big blue eyes alone could have made her fortune if she didn’t already possess one, but Hattie couldn’t decide if they were full of innocence or wisdom. The chit was decidedly not the standard milk-and-water miss. And that hair was impossible, of course, and the browned skin. The pastel gown was all wrong, too, over-fussy for such a little dab of a thing. No, the gel wasn’t ready for London, aside from the fact that she had the social graces of a newborn chick.

Luckily Hattie had planned on spending a month or so with the girl, getting her in shape before her jackanapes of a nephew arrived to take over. Meantime Lady Comstock could have a lovely time with St. Sevrin’s carte blanche at Ackerman’s Repository, helping the duchess order new furnishings for the Priory. There was nothing Hattie liked so much as spending other people’s money, unless it was ordering other people’s lives.

She had the footmen put Lionel’s portrait over the mantel in a clean but shabby bedchamber, right where she could see him every day, and rejoice that the dastard was dead and she was alive to enjoy his wealth. “And no,” she told him, not for the first time, “that bust of Homer doesn’t make you look one groat smarter, you old nincompoop.”

*

The campaign began. Lisanne knew she was being manipulated, but didn’t have the heart to disappoint the duke’s unfortunate relict. If Lady Comstock
was content to play with fabric swatches and furniture patterns all day while the duchess accomplished something worthwhile, Lisanne couldn’t mind approving the choices or giving an opinion when she had one. “I like light colors better than dark,” she offered. “And florals rather than stripes.”

She knew Aunt Hattie was also busy with the French dressmaker, for the gowns Mary now laid out for her in the evenings were of brighter, prettier colors and simpler styles. Mary was learning from Lady Comstock’s fancy dresser, too, for she begged to try new hairdos on her mistress. “Just for the practice, like.” Some of them even stayed up through dinner.

And bonnets. With Lady Comstock trimming the chip straw herself after dinner—a favorite hobby of hers, she declared—Lisanne could not refuse to wear them. The silk flowers sewn to the brims were rather pretty, and they did keep the sun out of her eyes now that the weather was getting nicer and nicer. Best of all, the hats were the perfect size for transporting the nests of field mice disturbed by the plows.

Even company dinners were not so terrible. Squire Pemberton was always ready to debate the classics, while his wife enjoyed Aunt Hattie’s Town gossip. Mrs. Squire Pemberton finally even stopped looking over her shoulder for the Priory ghosts. Lisanne didn’t mention Lord Comstock upstairs in his wife’s bedchamber, and her guests never mentioned Sevrin Woods. The vicar was eager to discuss Lisanne’s plans for a new school, now that she had the poorhouse almost empty, and he didn’t mind taking up a hand of whist, either. Everyone learned to ignore what Lisanne ate, or didn’t, after the time Aunt Hattie asked why she wasn’t eating the superb beef Bourguignonne Cook had prepared for the guests. Lisanne’s reply, that it was Spotted George on the platter, cost everyone their appetites. No one asked again.

There weren’t many return invitations, which aggravated the normally active Lady Comstock to no end. Not even Devon could be this dull. Hattie was giving up the London Season, for heaven’s sake; she didn’t mean to give up all social entertainments. And how was the chit going to learn how to go on if she never got out? It was Mary who heard through her mum at the vicarage, who heard everything, that there were no big parties, period. None of the better families were throwing lawn picnics or country balls, because no one wanted to have the duke’s relatives under the same roof as the duchess’s relatives, not after hearing how St. Sevrin had threatened Sir Alfred.

So Lady Comstock decided to get rid of the Findleys. They were sponging on Lisanne’s generosity, after all. She called on Cherise Findley while the duchess was overseeing a ditch-draining or something equally as disgusting—but in a hat.

Lady Comstock’s mission didn’t take the twenty minutes assigned for a morning call. Lady Findley wasn’t half done complaining about her ills when Aunt Hattie suggested a sojourn to Brighton. Sea bathing was relaxing for the nerves, she advised, and might even clear up Esmé’s complexion. Personally she would have taken the bonbons away from that plump little peagoose, but that was none of Lady Comstock’s concern. Getting these mushrooms out of Devon was.

The prince might be in Brighton soon, she emphasized, and all the truly fashionable members of the
ton
would summer there. Just the place to begin introducing a young deb. Lady Comstock even offered to write some letters of introduction, smoothing the chit’s way. Or the Findleys could stay on here at Neville Hall, Hattie allowed, inspecting her manicure. Of course they expected the duke back anyday now….

The Findleys were gone by the end of the week, their servants with them since Sir Alfred wasn’t about to pay the staff for a summer vacation. Aunt Hattie sent a box of bonbons to enliven their journey. Then she sent to Neville Hall all the superannuated servants Lisanne insisted on keeping on her payroll. The place needed a caretaking staff, she explained, and Lisanne was satisfied the people were given healthy, productive lives. Lady Comstock was satisfied that the Priory was at last beginning to look like a gentleman’s residence, not a retirement home for domestic help.

Things were going so swimmingly, in fact, that Kelly decided to travel up to London and see what was keeping His Grace. With that battle-ax aunt of the duke’s in charge, Kelly hadn’t had a bout of dyspepsia in weeks. He also hadn’t had a night on the Town. The senior footman was promoted to butler.

Kelly left and he didn’t come back, either, to Lady Comstock’s consternation. Lisanne didn’t seem to notice as spring changed to summer, and there were plants to tend and crops to watch, but Aunt Hattie fretted over her nephew’s long stay in Town, away from his bride. Letters availed Hattie nothing, for the dratted boy sent money, not answers. And Lisanne never mentioned his name.

Hattie was beginning to get a bad feeling about this marriage. She loved the girl as a daughter by now…no, as a niece. No daughter of hers would be caught dead at a sheepshearing. Lisanne stood by with a salve, in case the sheep got nicked. His Grace wasn’t to know, but it was the same salve she’d sent for his wound. Then again, she wasn’t to know that he’d used it on his new stallion’s scraped leg. Communication between the two, now that Kelly was gone, was nil, which pleased Lady Comstock even less. Lisanne could be the redemption of her wild nephew, and Sloane could keep the girl from getting lost in her books and botanicals—if they ever spoke to each other.

Lisanne was as ready for London as she’d ever be, Aunt Hattie felt. Whether London was ready for such an original remained to be seen, but with her contacts and connections Hattie would see the little duchess creditably established. The job would be easier with the Season winding down and everyone leaving Town for country house parties and seaside resorts. St. Sevrin’s bride would be a nine days’ wonder this year, and be just another eccentric aristocrat by next fall’s Little Season. The problem was, of course, that Lisanne refused to leave Devon.

By now Lisanne knew Lady Comstock was no grieving widow. She also knew that Hattie kept Lord Comstock’s portrait nearby just to aggravate the man if he was listening, as much as Lionel’s nip-farthing ways had aggravated Hattie during their marriage. The duke’s aunt kept to her widow’s weeds because they were a perfect foil to her silver hair and the Comstock diamonds, not because she was in perpetual mourning. Her blacks were elegant, expensive, and fashionable silks and lace. No dreary black bombazine for this widow.

Lisanne quickly realized that St. Sevrin’s aunt wasn’t in Devon on any repairing lease, either. She was ruralizing because it suited her managing ways to refurbish a huge manor house and rearrange Lisanne’s life. By the vast correspondence Lady Comstock sent and received, she was no humble relict of some minor lord; Harriet Comstock was a force to be reckoned with among the
belle monde,
knowing everyone and everything that went on among the Upper Ten Thousand.

Lisanne had been well and truly diddled, but she didn’t mind. In fact, she respected the older woman’s family loyalty. Lady Comstock was only doing her best to make Lisanne an acceptable member of the duke’s world. It was an impossible task, of course, but most likely Aunt Hattie had a long list of instructions from the duke, too.

Because of her fondness for the lady, Lisanne did not take offense when Aunt Hattie complained yet again that St. Sevrin hadn’t returned from London, and that Lisanne refused to accompany her to go find him.

“If you have some place else to go, ma’am, please don’t feel you have to stay on my account. I know you’re missing the opera and theater and all the balls. I have my work here.”

“You have no proper companion here if I leave. And your place is at your husband’s side.”

“Why, no, ma’am. The duke and I agreed that we wouldn’t hang on each other’s sleeves.”

“Well, I do not approve of these modern marriages when the husband and wife go their separate ways as soon as the heir is born.”

“Neither do I. We need two heirs.”

“Don’t be pert, girl. And if you and my nephew are so agreed that you require two sons, the wretch should be here seeing about the successions, unless you’re already breeding.” She ended this last on a hopeful note, which Lisanne had to disappoint.

“Then, by all that’s holy, what is keeping that clunch in London?”

“Why, I suppose all the entertainments you’ve been so eager to tell me about, to lure me there. St. Sevrin loves London, ma’am. It’s his way of life. He wouldn’t be happy in the country. I do not look for him anytime soon.”

“Fustian. He hates London and all the shallow posturing that goes on. He’s chided me often enough for being a vain, silly creature who only cares for gowns and gossip. He couldn’t wait to buy his colors and be gone off soldiering.”

“That was in his younger days. He seems to have adapted recently.”

“What, by cutting a swathe through the
demi monde
? What else was he to do, with no future, no occupation? That’s why he drinks and gambles to excess, just for something to do.”

“Well, there’s plenty for him to do here. Do you think St. Sevrin is any good at baling hay? Painting the barn? Darning the tapestries?” Lisanne held up her corner of the hanging currently under repair, trying to keep the hurt from her voice. If he disliked London so much, but stayed there anyway, it could only mean he disliked his wife in Devon even more. “No, he won’t come.”

St.
Sevrin was ready to go home. He’d paid his debts and worked out his investments so they were already returning a profit. He wouldn’t have to dip so deeply into the Neville capital for the rest of the major improvements needed at the Priory.

And after a month or two—almost three, he admitted to himself—of Aunt Hattie’s company, even his ugly phiz should look good to his bride. If he knew his aunt, Lisanne had the benefits of the best finishing school in the country without ever leaving Devon. The old Tartar’s wily ways, sharp tongue, and encyclopedic knowledge of the upper class would have the young duchess up to snuff by now. He wouldn’t be returning to that odd, appealing little waif.

In a way St. Sevrin was sorry. Such a child of nature shouldn’t be forced into a prunes-and-prisms world. He shrugged and sipped his wine. No one said life was fair.

Aunt Hattie hadn’t said the girl was mad. Different, an original, refreshing, yes. Mad, no. Of course the breeze blowing through Hattie’s upper story was so strong she mightn’t recognize windmills in anyone else’s attics. Trying to disturb Uncle Lionel’s eternal rest by toting his portrait around was barmy enough.

No matter, if there was a hint of lunacy, Hattie’s frequent letters wouldn’t be urging Sloane to return to the Priory to start setting up his nursery. She cared too much about the
haut monde’s
opinion to try to foist moonlings into their midst.

So Sloane was ready to go do his duty for God, King, and country. The marriage would be consummated.

Then Kelly came to Town. On vacation, he said, not supplanting the man St. Sevrin had valeting him, nor the butler who almost slammed the door in the grizzled veteran’s face. He needed a holiday, Kelly declared, after chasing after the duchess for all those weeks. “’Twere like trying to catch a butterfly on horseback, without a net or a saddle.” He was ready to rejoin the regiment, Kelly told his employer reproachfully, unless His Grace was relieving him of guard duty.

“What, that little thing running you ragged? Maybe you better think of retiring altogether, Kelly. Lady Comstock writes she’s got the chit in hand, so you couldn’t have much to do.”