Byron's Child (10 page)

Surging to her feet, she snapped her fingers under his nose. “I don’t give that for my reputation. For crying out loud, Giles, I don’t belong in this time, I don’t intend to marry here, I lost my virginity long ago, and you are not my guardian.”

“Precisely what I told Harry Font.” He grinned wryly as she glared at him in outrage, hands on hips. “No, not about your virginity. But you see, that’s just the point; you wouldn’t want him to know that.” He slumped wearily into a chair. “You lose your precious reputation and Roland’s not going to want you hanging around his virtuous wife and sister. If he throws us out we’re in serious trouble. We’re going to be here for a while, maybe a long while.”

“How long?” She dropped to her knees beside his chair. “How long? Do you mean we might be stuck forever?”

“I don’t know. I wish to hell Cassandra hadn’t destroyed her calculator. With just the slide rule it’s going to be hit or miss at best.”

Jodie felt the blood drain from her face. “You mean it? We might be stuck here? But my family!” she cried in anguish.

“And mine,” he said sombrely, taking her hands in his warm, strong clasp. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have told you.”

“I’m an adult.” She gazed up, reading his eyes. “I know you will do everything that can be done to get us home. I trust you, Giles, now and always.”

His look changed. He put one hand to her face, caressing her cheek, and leaned towards her for a breathless moment. Then he flung out of the chair, almost knocking her over.

“You’re my sister.”

~ ~ ~

“One, two, three. One, two, three,” counted Charlotte. “That is very good, Jodie. Pray play a little faster, Emily.”

The lilting waltz tune quickened and Roland propelled Jodie round the drawing room, its carpet rolled back for the lesson. He was not a bad dancer, though his face was growing somewhat red after two country dances and a cotillion. He appeared to be enjoying himself.

The door opened.

“Lord Thorncrest is come, my lady,” announced Potter. “Are you at home?”

With a doubtful glance at Jodie, Charlotte hesitated.

“Yes, yes, show him in,” Roland said, yesterday’s condemnation of the earl forgotten or dismissed. His feathers were easily ruffled, but as easily smoothed. He pulled out a huge white muslin handkerchief and blotted his forehead. “How d’ye do, Thorncrest. Just teaching my cousin a few of our English dances.”

The earl stood in the doorway, regarding the scene with his usual sardonic look. “Perhaps I might be allowed to take over your duties for a while, Faringdale. May I have this dance, Miss Judith?”

“Thank you, my lord,” said Jodie demurely, “but I believe I shall do better to stay with the teacher to whom I am accustomed.”

Roland nodded his approval. “You could stand up with Emily, Thorncrest,” he suggested. “Charlotte, my dear, you will not mind a turn at the pianoforte?”

Charlotte took Emily’s place at the keyboard. A less accomplished pianist than Emily, she began to play with strongly marked time as if she was still counting her “one, two, three.” Emily curtsied to Thorncrest, who bowed, took her hand, and led her onto the floor.

“I should like to watch for a minute,” Jodie said. She and Roland stepped back out of the way.

Emily moved stiffly in her partner’s arms, her eyes focused on his waistcoat buttons. He said something, and her gaze moved up as far as his cravat, a miracle of starched muslin creased in intricate folds. Again he spoke. She looked up into his face and began to answer as they swung towards Jodie and Roland.

“…said you promised to take her on a steam packet on the Thames.”

“I hope you will go…”

They danced away, Emily relaxed now, gliding smoothly across the floor as if her toes were an inch above the surface. She and the earl were both excellent dancers, a pleasure to watch together. Jodie recognized that Emily responded pliantly to Thorncrest’s slightest lead, so that they moved as one.

Unable to give up her autonomy, even for the sake of a dance, Jodie would never dance as well. It was fun, though. She tugged Roland back onto the floor.

The waltz thumped to its end. Roland whipped out his handkerchief again.

“Excellent, Cousin, excellent, but enough for today, I think. I shall be happy to stand up with you at your first ball.”

“We already have an invitation to a ball,” Charlotte told Lord Thorncrest, “though the Season is scarcely begun.”

“Whose ball is that, ma’am? I hope I have not already thrown away my invitation.”

Jodie was unable to suppress an unladylike snort at the implications of this speech. Plainly the earl was certain he had received an invitation, whoever the hostess was, and equally plainly he was in the habit of discarding invitations unanswered. Charlotte, however, understood only that his lordship intended to change his mind about attending the event on hearing that the Faringdales were to be present.

“Lady Cowper’s ball,” she informed him, beaming. “It is some ten days hence.”

“Ah yes, the estimable Lady Cowper,” he murmured, then said to Charlotte with his charming smile, “May I hope to lead you out for a quadrille, ma’am?”

“Oh, I do not think…“ Charlotte glanced anxiously at Roland. “I shall be chaperoning….”

“But I insist. What are we bachelors to do if the pretty young matrons abandon the floor? I shall count on it.” Leaving her in blushing confusion, he turned to Emily with smooth politeness. “You will reserve a waltz and supper for me, Miss Emily? Thank you, I am honoured. Oh, and Miss Judith,” he added, as if in an afterthought. “A country dance, perhaps?”

“Perhaps,” Jodie agreed pertly, sure that he was teasing her.

He laughed. “To return to the present, since the sky has cleared Miss Emily has accepted my invitation to drive in the park, if we may have your kind permission, Lady Faringdale.”

He had told Jodie he never drove females! She suspected he was well aware that he had set the household by the ears when he took her out yesterday. He was not averse to causing trouble, but at least he seemed to be making some small effort to atone—if only to tease her further, she realized as she caught his mocking glance.

Roland invited Jodie and Charlotte to accompany him to the park in the barouche. The ladies went upstairs to put on their bonnets and pelisses.

Charlotte begged Jodie to come into her dressing room for a moment. “What am I to do?” she wailed. “I could not refuse Lord Thorncrest but Roland has forbidden me to dance.”

“Because he thinks you are pregnant? What a knucklehead. Don’t worry about it, for heaven’s sake, Charlotte. The ball is ten days away; by then you will probably have seen the doctor and told Roland you were mistaken.”

“I have already made an appointment.” She looked guilty. “I wanted to put it off as long as possible so it is not for two weeks, after the ball. But I like dancing. I want to dance.”

“There’s no earthly reason you shouldn’t, even if you really were pregnant. Tell me, has Roland stopped making…hm…insisting on his conjugal rights?”

Charlotte crimsoned to the roots of her blonde curls. “You mean, because I am breeding?” she whispered, glancing nervously at the door. “He offered to, but I told him—Oh Jodie, I cannot talk about it.” She hid her face in her hands.

“No, I’m sorry, I should not have asked.” Jodie paused. “All the same, you just be brave and tell him that if you can do that, you can dance.”

Unexpectedly, Charlotte giggled, then bit her lip. “I shall try,” she promised.

Emily, already dressed to go out with Lord Thorncrest, was waiting in Jodie’s chamber. “What shall I say to him?” she wailed. “I shall be all alone with him for at least an hour.”

“You managed very well while you were dancing.” Jodie took her pelisse from the wardrobe and sat down at the dressing table to tidy her hair before putting on her hat.

“That was because I know how much you want to go to the Tower, and Astley’s, and on the river. Roland will probably hint him away from inviting you, but I thought if I told Lord Thorncrest I want to see all those things, he would have to ask me too, and Roland could not possibly object. And it worked. We are to go on the steam packet to Richmond on the first convenient fine day.”

Jodie hugged her. “What a darling you are, Emily. Tell me, do you think steam will ever replace sails as a way of crossing the oceans?”

“The engines would have to be very much improved. I read an article… Oh Jodie, you already know the answer!”

“Yes, but Thorncrest does not. Ask him his opinion.”

“I doubt he has one.”

“You cannot know until you ask,” Jodie pointed out. “Besides, I believe he is more intelligent than he chooses to appear. I told you he knew what he was talking about at the museum yesterday. Anyway, that does not matter. If he has no opinion, then tell him yours. Just try to pretend that he’s a normal person.”

Emily went off into whoops. “A normal person!” she gasped. “Neither abnormal nor subnormal? Oh dear, I wish you had not said that. I shall not be able to look at him without laughing.”

“And a very good thing too,” said Jodie, tying the ribbons of her hat firmly beneath her chin.

Chapter Nine

Giles was spending by far too much of his time at Lady Bestor’s house. Jodie was not jealous, she assured herself, especially since it turned out that Cassandra was engaged to Harry Font. But it was not healthy for Giles to concentrate on his calculations to the exclusion of all else. Every morning he went to Dover Street, and whether he returned for luncheon or not till dinner, he spent the rest of the day and evening in the book room, with his papers and his modernized slide rule.

He needed a break.

On the other hand, Jodie had been reading how Ada Lovelace’s scientific career was, or rather would be, cut short by interruptions. Family duties, illness, her mother’s bizarre behaviour, and finally a passion for gambling would distract her from her work after the one brilliant paper. Jodie had no desire to figure in future history as the cause of Giles’s failure to reach his full potential.

Roland rescued her from the dilemma by insisting that Giles must attend Lady Cowper’s ball.

Charlotte seconded him. “Since we called on Lady Cowper, she has kindly sent another invitation specifically addressed to you and Jodie. It will not do to offend her, Cousin Giles. She is one of the patronesses of Almack’s and though she is prodigious good-humoured you will not want to risk Jodie not receiving vouchers.”

“I won’t?” said Giles blankly. “What’s Almack’s?”

Emily hastened to explain. “It is a club where the most exclusive dancing assemblies are held every Wednesday during the Season. For a young lady, not to receive vouchers is to be banished to the outskirts of Society.”

“Heaven forbid that any act of mine should banish Jodie to the outskirts of Society.” Giles grinned. “All right, I’ll go to this ball of yours.”

“A noble sacrifice, dear Giles,” said Jodie.

That very evening he abandoned his calculations to go with them to a concert of the Philharmonic Society in Hanover Square. It was one of the items on Jodie’s list of “Things to Do in Town,” much of it culled from the latest edition of the Picture of London.

Jodie managed to cram several amusements into each day, from Bullock’s Museum and Mrs. Salmon’s Waxwork to a balloon ascension and afternoon tea with the Duchess of Richmond. For all her bashfulness, young Lady Faringdale moved in the first circles. Though the Season was scarce begun, Charlotte had obtained invitations to a rout, a ridotto, an informal hop, a Venetian breakfast and a card party (Jodie had strict instructions from Roland not to introduce pinochle). They had been to Drury Lane to see Edmund Kean, and to Gunter’s for ices. Jodie’s reams of notes were piled as high as Giles’s.

That was most satisfactory, but still more pleasing was the change in Emily and Charlotte. Encouraged by Jodie’s total lack of shyness, they blossomed in her company. After one short week, Emily had two youthful admirers and Roland was so swelled with pride in his wife that Jodie kept watching for his waistcoat buttons to pop off.

“I am hardly afraid of Lord Thorncrest at all,” Emily confided to Jodie as they went up to dress for Lady Cowper’s ball. “To think that only a week since I dreaded the prospect of taking supper with him tonight! Now I know that if I ask his opinion of something I have read, he will converse perfectly intelligently, without the least sarcasm.”

“I am waiting for the moment when he asks your opinion. All men appreciate a willing listener, but he is not yet aware of you as an intelligent person in your own right.”

“He is aware of you, I think.”

“As an individual, yes.” Jodie laughed. “Intelligent  I’m  not so sure of. Amusing and infuriating perhaps.”

He could hardly fail to be aware of Emily’s beauty tonight, Jodie thought as they descended the stairs, arms about each other’s waists, some time later. White was de rigueur for a young lady in her first Season, but Charlotte, with an unerring eye, had compromised. Emily’s gown consisted of a daffodil satin slip worn under a frothy frock of white net. The overall effect emphasized Emily’s creamy skin tones, exposed by the low neckline and tiny puff sleeves. Anticipation had brought a becoming colour to her cheeks.

Jodie was quite pleased with her own appearance too. With Charlotte’s concurrence, she had chosen a gown of amber silk, trimmed with old ivory lace. It flattered the unfashionable tan that gave credence to Charlotte’s oft-whispered explanation of her “Red Indian” ancestry. Dinah had long since given up her efforts with the curling tongs and instead had woven a borrowed strand of amber beads through the black coils of Jodie’s hair.

Charlotte, in blue, having overseen the last details of their toilettes, led them down the stairs and into the drawing room where the gentlemen awaited their appearance.

Lord Thorncrest’s eyes widened when he caught sight of Emily. However, his expression held as much smugness as admiration, and his words conveyed as much self-satisfaction as compliment.

“I see I am to be congratulated on having chosen a diamond of the first water.”

Jodie almost forgave him when he presented her with a nosegay of yellow rosebuds. He had obviously gone to the trouble of enquiring about their gowns, since Emily’s posy was also yellow and Charlotte’s white.