Carola Dunn (3 page)

 She felt the heat rise in her cheeks. “That had best wait upon the event, Dr Macfarlane,” she said primly.

 “As you wish, my lady.”

 His stiff tone and set mouth suggested he took her words to mean she considered him encroaching. Inadvertently she had offended him. Worse, he now believed her the sort of haughty, supercilious female who disdained those less favoured by fate. She did not know how to explain she simply wished neither to broadcast nor even to contemplate her approaching betrothal, still less the marriage to follow.

 “Are you a Lady, miss?” Round-eyed, the boy forgot his pain. “A Real Lady? Lor! That’s why I clumb the tree, miss...my lady, to see the pretty ladies a-coming, an’ the footmen up behind. I wants to be a footman, I does, in a fancy coat an’ all, but me da says I’m to be a gamekeeper like him acos I got no brothers.”

 “Gamekeepers are important men,” Cecily told him. “My Papa, who is a Real Lord, often asks his gamekeeper’s advice.”

 “Yes, his Grace does, too, and the lords what shoots with him, but...” Ben broke off and gazed up in alarm at the Real Footman who reappeared with two sticks in his white-gloved hand and a look of distaste on his face. “Wotcher going ter do to me arm, Dr Iain? Will it hurt?” He clutched Cecily’s hand tightly.

 “Yes, but you are a brave boy. Lady Cecily says so.” As he spoke, Dr Macfarlane untied his neckcloth and unwound it till it hung loose. He took John’s sticks with a nod of approval and laid them on the ground. “My lady,” he said, “I’ll need your footman to hold the lad still while I manipulate the bone.”

 John’s horrified expression as he glanced down at his spotless white breeches almost made Cecily giggle. “I shall hold Ben,” she said firmly.

 “Oh please do, miss--my lady,” cried the frightened child. “I’ll be good, honest.”

 Dr Macfarlane looked from one to the other. “Very well. It will only take a moment, I trust.”

 Determined not to let him despise her for squeamishness, she watched his deft hands straighten the broken bone. Ben moaned and jerked once. As the doctor wrapped his neckcloth around the splinted limb, the boy’s cheeks took on a greenish hue.

 “I’m awful giddy, Dr Iain,” he whispered, closing his eyes.

 Macfarlane felt his forehead. “You’ll soon feel more the thing, laddy, as long as you’re not jolted about on horseback. I’ll send for the gig, and in the meantime you’d best have my coat to keep you warm.” He started to undo the buttons.

 “Oh no, Dr Iain,” Cecily cried, reaching out to stop him, “we have plenty of rugs in the carriage--John, pray fetch one at once--and plenty of space to carry Ben up to the house.”

 Their eyes met and held. A current of heat tingled through Cecily’s body to the tips of her toes. She had won back his regard. Odd that his opinion should matter so much to her, even if he was Lord Avon’s favoured cousin.

 Moments later she was ensconced in the carriage with Ben’s head in her lap. From the opposite seat, her mother gazed with shocked dismay upon a daughter run mad, whereas Dilson looked as if she contemplated giving notice. Lord Avon, however, appeared to have recovered from his pique. A slight, amused, indulgent smile hovered on his lips as he closed the door and bade the coachman drive on.

 “Cecily, what in heaven’s name has come over you?” Lady Flint exclaimed.

 “You have always taught me, Mama, that it is a lady’s duty to see to the welfare of her dependents.”

 “But this ragamuffin is not your dependent—”

 “Yet,” Cecily murmured.

 “...And besides, two gentlemen and two footmen could surely have managed without your aid!”

 “Yes, Mama. I did not think.”

 It was true, she had not thought before acting upon impulse, but she was not a bit sorry. All her life she had suppressed her impulses, had tried to be perfect to compensate Mama and Papa for the row of little graves in the churchyard at home. She had behaved the way they and her governess and Society ordained. Soon she would have to behave the way her husband ordained. For just a few days, the Twelve Days of Christmas, she would please herself.     

Chapter 3

 A frisson of nervous anticipation coursed through Cecily’s veins as she descended the grand staircase at her mother’s side. She was going to meet her future parents-in-law, but what really had her in a flutter was the feeling that she was going to meet herself, for the first time.

 Now, in the brief no-man’s-land between childhood and marriage, she hoped to learn who was this person who for nineteen years had lived the rôle of obedient daughter.

 At the bottom of the marble stairs, in the spacious, domed hall, Lord Avon and Dr Macfarlane stood chatting. Lord Avon came to greet the ladies. The look he gave Cecily she recognized as more approving than admiring—she had changed out of the soiled, crushed rose velvet and was once more neatly and appropriately clad, in blue-and-green striped lutestring.

 “My mother is eager to make your acquaintance,” he said to Cecily, offering Lady Flint his arm, “and to renew her aquaintance with you, ma’am. You have both met my cousin, Dr Macfarlane,” he added mockingly.

 The doctor, himself restored to decency with a fresh cravat and clean unmentionables, made his belated bow. Lady Flint nodded, gracious but with a hint of rebuke. She held him responsible for her daughter’s momentary lapse. Cecily swept a low, graceful curtsy, glad to see his delightful smile in response. They followed the others across the hall.

 He was not much taller than she. The short black hair she had glimpsed when he raised his hat showed a distinct tendency to unruliness. No doubt if he wore it longer it would disport itself in ungovernable curls at odds with the self-discipline she sensed in him—and quite inappropriate to his profession.

 “How is Ben, Doctor?” she asked softly, picturing the poor child laid down upon his bed of pain.

 “He’s in the kitchen, stuffing himself with mince-pies and regaling all and sundry with the tale of how he rode in a carriage with two Real Ladies.”

 Cecily laughed. “He has made a quick recovery!”

 “Given proper care, children are remarkably resilient. I have often thought I should like... No matter! I don’t wish to bore you.”

 She would have pressed him but they entered a reception room where several small groups of people sat or stood about in quiet conversation. Perhaps a score in all, they were dwarfed by the size and splendour of the room. The walls were hung with gold-patterned red silk panels between white pilasters, and the lofty coffered ceiling was painted with scenes of Classical Greece.

 Lord Avon turned to find her gazing upward. “An odd conceit, I have always thought,” he observed with a smile, “to make one crane one’s neck to admire paintings on the ceiling.”

 “Was it painted by Angelica Kauffman?” Cecily asked.

 “I believe so. I did not realize you are a connoisseur of art.” His tone was questioning.

 “I cannot claim to know a great deal, only I am particularly interested in Angelica Kauffman because she was a woman.”

 His laugh was condescending, as at a forgivable feminine foible. Dr Macfarlane looked intrigued, but as he was about to speak Lord Avon offered Cecily his arm.

 “Come, let me make you known to my mother.”

 Lady Flint was already talking to a silver-haired lady who sat near the fire on a sofa, her limbs raised on a footstool. The Duchess turned her head and gave Cecily a smile of such sweetness that it almost reconciled her on the spot to her future marriage.

 “My daughter, Cecily, Duchess.”

 Cecily curtsied.

 “Welcome to Felversham, my dear. Do you mind if I keep you to myself for a little while, for a comfortable cose, before Jasper bears you off to meet the rest of his relatives?”

 Her greeting made it plain she regarded Cecily as virtually her son’s betrothed. “Of course not, ma’am,” Cecily said perforce.

 The Duchess cast a speaking glance at Lord Avon, who said, “Lady Flint, I believe you are acquainted with my aunt, Lady Missenden?”

 As they went off—neither reluctant to leave her alone with the Duchess, for was not Cecily a pretty-behaved, compliant young lady?—her Grace invited Cecily to sit down beside her. Dr Macfarlane lingered a moment to adjust the shawl about his aunt’s shoulders. She looked up at him, blue eyes sparkling with mischief.

 “Thank you, Iain. How do you suppose I go on without you when you are in Bath?”

 He grinned sheepishly. “Well enough, I daresay, but Mrs Fredericks has gone to her brother’s house for Christmas, has she not?”

 “My companion, Lady Cecily,” the Duchess explained, adding tartly to her nephew, “I do not call upon Henrietta to rearrange my shawl, I assure you.”

 “No, nor to do half the things for you she ought. But I shall not scold you now for your determined independence. I must not keep you any longer from your ‘comfortable cose.’“ He smiled at Cecily.

 “Do you not think, sir,” she proposed tentatively, “that a determination to be as independent as possible may be a good thing? At least, when my old nurse ‘took the rheumatiz,’ as she said, she found a certain amount of exercise kept her joints from stiffening so badly.”

 The doctor looked at her in surprise. “In some cases, perhaps, but there is more than one type of—”

 The Duchess laughed. “You two may discuss my case at a later date. Just tell me, Iain, before you leave us in peace, how does that child go on, who broke his arm?”

 “Famously, Aunt Lou, testimony to my brilliant medical skills.”

 “Dr Macfarlane tells me Ben is in the kitchen devouring mince pies,” Cecily put in. A notion struck her. Was she bold enough to suggest it? Nothing venture, nothing gain, she told herself, regarding it as a test of her resolve to please herself. “Did you know, ma’am, that his ambition is to become a footman? I wonder if you might not find it convenient to employ him as a page, to run errands for you and to learn how to behave as an indoor servant.”

 Her Grace was obviously startled, whether by the idea itself or by Cecily’s forwardness in speaking out on such brief acquaintance.

 “A splendid notion,” exclaimed the doctor. “You will not hesitate to send Ben Diver running where you would not ask Mrs Fredericks.”

 “Perhaps,” said the Duchess thoughtfully. “Once his arm has healed.”

 Dr Macfarlane turned back to Cecily, hazel eyes twinkling. “But how does your suggestion accord with your approval of activity as a palliative for rheumatism, Lady Cecily?”

 “Don’t tease her, Iain,” ordered his aunt. “Go away, do. Edward will be here any moment wishing to further his acquaintance with Lady Cecily.”

 The Duchess and Dr Macfarlane exchanged a slightly apprehensive glance. As the doctor bowed and departed, Cecily wondered what was its significance. Was the Duke less enthusiastic about his heir’s bride-to-be than she had been given to suppose?

 If so, she could hardly count on him to save her. He would never offend a good friend like the Earl of Flint by hinting his daughter was unsuited to become the Marchioness of Avon.

 The Duchess talked to her kindly about life in Town as compared with the country and similar indifferent subjects. Nothing arose to awake in Cecily a desire to express any unconventional point of view. She liked the Duchess very much. Such a mama-in-law would be some compensation for a marriage of convenience, she thought hopefully.

 Her gaze sought out Lord Avon, but first found Dr Macfarlane. He was laughing with a pretty, golden-haired young lady.

 An unexpected pang shot through Cecily, a painful contraction of the heart, as though from a sudden deep disappointment. Don’t be a ninnyhammer, she scolded herself. She had had no reason whatsoever to assume Iain Macfarlane was unattached—and still less to care.

 Her carefully schooled face must not have revealed the burst of emotion, for the Duchess continued to talk of the convenience of living close to the shops and amusements of Bath.

 “And we are so happy that Iain was able to set up a practice close to home,” she continued, “quite apart from his being the best physician I could ask for with my silly ailments. He and Jasper grew up together, you know. They are as close as any two brothers who have taken different paths in life. Now that Jasper is ready to settle down, they will doubtless be closer than ever.” She patted Cecily’s hand with her knotted fingers.

 Cecily understood the unspoken words. Despite his profession, the doctor was a loved and respected member of the family, and the Duchess was relieved by her future daughter-in-law’s willingness to accept him as such.

 The Duke came in just then, with Cecily’s papa.

 “Well, Cecy, what do you think?” Lord Flint greeted her. “Pembroke and I have picked out a pretty little dapple-grey mare for you to ride while we are here.”

 “If you like her, she’s yours,” the Duke announced.

 Cecily curtsied, further depressed by this indication that his Grace, too, considered her betrothal a settled matter. “Thank you, sir,” she said, “you are too kind.”

 “Fiddle-faddle, my dear, she is only a hack. I had a fine young hunter ready for you, but Flint tells me you don’t care to hunt. A dashed shame!”

 “Edward!” said the Duchess in a warning tone.

 “Perhaps your papa is mistaken?” the Duke said hopefully. “I daresay your hunt at home does not admit ladies, so you have no notion what you’re missing?”

 “I fear, sir,” Cecily found herself saying, “I do not hunt because my sympathies are all with the fox.”

 The Duke’s jaw dropped. Lord Flint looked dazed. Her Grace chuckled. Lord Avon, who had arrived unnoticed at Cecily’s side, had that glint of mocking amusement in his gaze. Dr Macfarlane, also converging on the group, frankly grinned.

 The two young gentlemen each offered Cecily an arm.

 “Do come and meet my sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, and their spouses,” drawled Lord Avon.

 “And mine,” said his cousin.

 Her face burning, Cecily glanced at the Duchess, who nodded. A hand on each offered arm, she fled.

 “You knew!” she accused her rescuers in a whisper.

 “Only that my father hoped you shared the family passion for the hunt.”