Courtship and Curses (27 page)

“But—” Parthenope frowned and closed her mouth, then hesitated before replying, “Well, no, but I still don’t like it. It doesn’t feel right.”

Sophie felt a lump rise in her throat. “Parthenope, I’m sorry that Pereg—that your cousin and I didn’t suit after all. I know you’d hoped … but I can’t wear the willow for him forever. I wish him happy.” At least happy in his work. She wasn’t quite sure she was generous enough to wish him happy with, say, a beautiful, amiable, wealthy young lady of impeccable family or anything like that. “But I have to wish myself happy too, now. If Lord March is kind enough to find my company pleasant since neither of us dance, is there any harm done?”

“There might be,” Parthenope muttered darkly, resuming her brushing, and wouldn’t respond to any of Sophie’s entreaties to explain what she could possibly mean.

*   *   *

Parthenope was fortunately in a better mood the following morning when Sophie proposed that they finally pay their promised call on the Barkers. “It will quite likely put Norris Underwood’s nose out of joint if we do,” Parthenope said brightly as they set out in the carriage for the Hôtel d’Angleterre.

Sophie considered this. “Is that necessarily a good idea?”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s afraid of us. We know things about him that could discredit him with the Barkers, but he knows things that could discredit us—well, me.”

Parthenope shrugged. “We’re at a stalemate, then. And I don’t think we need worry about him. He’s a coward at heart, really, and cowards don’t like to attack first.”

“Cornered animals are the most dangerous, they say.”

“Then we need to be careful not to make him feel cornered. Stop worrying, Sophie, and help me think of some polite things to say to these Barker people. You do appreciate the sacrifice I’m making by coming with you, don’t you?”

“Is it my imagination, or have you become even more absurd lately?”

“If it makes you smile more often, then I’ll be as absurd as I possibly can. Good heavens, we’re here. Brussels
is
small, isn’t it?”

The Hôtel d’Angleterre was one of the more elegant hotels in the city and, just now, very full. As they crossed the crowded front salon and climbed the stairs to the Barkers’ rooms, following an officious maid, Sophie leaned close to Parthenope. “Behave yourself, if you please,” she said in a low voice.

“What if I don’t?”

“If you don’t, I’ll tell James Leland that you think he dances like a plow ox,” Sophie told her.

Parthenope gasped. “You wouldn’t!”

Sophie was saved from having to answer by someone’s throwing the door open while the maid was still knocking. The someone was Kitty Barker, who beamed at them.

“Lady Sophie! And Lady Parthenope, too! Why, what a pleasant surprise! Do come in—thank yo—er, mare-see, Jeannette. That will be all.” She nodded to the maid, bustled Sophie and Parthenope inside, and shut the door, calling, “Aunt, do come—we have callers! You know,” she said to Sophie in a confiding tone as she ushered them across the comfortable-looking parlor, “it really isn’t a surprise. I was looking out the window and saw you drive up to the hotel and was so hopeful you were coming to call on us! Aunt will be along directly—I sent her to change her cap because she will wear one of her old ones sometimes, instead of the new lace ones we just bought. The lace here in Brussels is just heavenly, don’t you think? I should like to have a whole gown made of it, but Aunt says it isn’t appropriate for someone my age to wear all lace. I declare, I don’t know who makes up these silly rules about how old one must be to do things, do you?”

Sophie stole a quick glance at Parthenope, who was looking bemused.
Please don’t say anything cutting
, she thought hard as Parthenope drew breath and opened her mouth.

“I do know, as a matter of fact,” Parthenope said. “It’s a trio of elderly Scottish spinsters who’ve never left Aberdeen in their lives, but saved up enough to have bought the license from the Crown decades ago to decide who may wear what, and no one’s ever figured out how to get it away from them.”

Miss Barker stared at her blankly for a moment, then burst into peals of laughter. “Oh, my stars, Lady Parthenope, you’re such a quizzer! For a moment, I thought you were— Wait till I tell Aunt! Aunt, where
are
you? I can’t imagine why she’s taking so long.… Won’t you please come and sit down?”

“Aberdeen?” Sophie whispered to Parthenope as Miss Barker hurried to the sofas by the fireplace to plump up the cushions, then to rap smartly on a door at the far side of the room, still calling her aunt.

“I don’t know. It’s what popped into my head.” Parthenope looked a little wild-eyed. “Good God, I can almost feel sorry for Norris Underwood. Does he have any idea what he’s letting himself in for?”

“Probably not. Then again, he tried for you.”

Parthenope wrinkled her nose and stuck her tongue out at Sophie, then quickly composed her face as Miss Barker came dancing back. “Lady Sophie, won’t you sit here? May I fetch you another cushion, or a footstool? No? Lady Parthenope, you must sit here by me and tell me more about these ladies of Aberdeen.”

Sophie was about to nervously suggest that she herself sit by Miss Barker when Mrs. Barker emerged from her room, followed by a maid carrying a daintily arranged tea tray. She directed the maid to set it down on the table between the sofas, then murmured her greetings and seated herself next to Sophie.

“Oh, Aunt, thank you!” Miss Barker said, clapping her hands. “I should never have remembered to order refreshments on my own. Shall I pour? Lady Parthenope, will you take a dish of tea?”

Under cover of tea pouring and questions of did they prefer Chinese or Indian, Sophie had a chance to examine her hostesses more closely. Kitty Barker was aptly named, for she indeed resembled a kitten, with the same small features and wide-eyed interest in a world she was sure must love her. Right now she was chattering to Parthenope, leaving few enough gaps requiring response in the conversation that Sophie felt it was safe to turn her attention to Kitty’s aunt, who was dabbing the excess tea from her saucer where Kitty had mispoured.

“Have you been traveling on the continent long?” she opened tentatively.

“No, Brussels is our first stop. Friends assured us we should wait till spring was advanced before we thought about traveling any farther, if we didn’t wish to jar our carriage to pieces on the roads. I thought it might be wise to stop here and let my niece get a little more accustomed to going out in society.” She spoke matter-of-factly, but when she met Sophie’s eyes on her last sentence, there was a distinct twinkle in them.

“Her manners are charming,” Sophie assured her. “Too many girls are so tongue-tied on first coming out because it is all so new and confusing. I know I was.”

“A thread or two restraining her tongue might not come amiss, but then, she has always been as you see her. Her mother died young, and she was indulged by my late husband’s brother until his death last year, right after my Ned went.”

Ah, so she’d been right—Mrs. Barker was Kitty’s aunt by marriage. “How sad for both of you. But at least you have each other, and Miss Barker certainly seems fond of you.”

“Fond enough, as I am of her. But it’s a husband she’s wanting, if you’ll pardon my plain speaking. Which is why we’re here.”

“Are you looking for a foreign husband for her?” Sophie asked, startled.

“Goodness, no!” Mrs. Barker chuckled. “Especially as Kitty’s French—what little there is of it—was learned from a schoolmistress who spoke it with a Yorkshire accent. No, I thought that she might acquire a little polish if we went abroad, and I myself have always had a hankering to see something of the world, which I couldn’t do till Bonaparte had his teeth drawn. Of course, he seems to have grown them back, so I expect our junketing about will come to an early end and we’ll have to go back to London.”

She paused and looked at Sophie consideringly, as if deciding whether to say more. Sophie tried to look earnest and discreet, which seemed to work, for Mrs. Barker continued, in a lower voice, “I daresay you know exactly what we are and where we come from, Lady Sophie. We’re what you nobility like to call cits. I’m all right with that. I’m proud of the way my Ned and his brother worked to build the business and become successful, and now half of London uses Barker Brothers paper and ledger books. I only wish they could have lived longer to enjoy their money. But it means Kitty will find herself mixing in a different world from what she’s used to, because these days nobs are discovering that cits’ gold is just as shiny as anyone else’s. So, here we are, trying to polish Kitty up so she’s as shiny as the guineas in her marriage portion.”

“Yes, I—I can understand that.” Sophie couldn’t help feeling a little taken aback at this rush of confidences. But she liked Mrs. Barker’s concern for her niece’s happiness. “Is—does Kitty—has she accepted that she might be sought out because she’s an heiress?”

Mrs. Barker looked troubled. “She might have done. But I don’t like to bring it up in quite such a bald way and take all the moonlight and roses out of looking for a husband. There’ll be time enough for that if the situation arises.”

She was far kinder than Aunt Isabel had been. Sophie took a breath, choosing her words carefully. “So if someone were to pay her marked attention, she might not understand if—if his interest was inspired purely by her or by…?”

“Her money?” Mrs. Barker looked at her sharply. “She might, or she might not. It’s something I am keeping my eyes open on, though.”

They both fell silent and sipped their tea. Across from them, Kitty Barker continued to talk at Parthenope, who was maintaining her countenance admirably.

“I trust you won’t mind Kitty calling on you in turn,” Mrs. Barker said, watching them also. “There’ll be no stopping her now. She seems to have taken quite a violent liking to Lady Parthenope. Not all the ladies in Brussels have been so kind to her.”

“We shall happily receive her—and you, ma’am.”

Mrs. Barker smiled at her.

They stayed a cordial half hour, and Kitty promised to return the call as soon as possible, for she quite longed to make the acquaintance of Lady Parthenope’s dear, sweet little bird, Hester.

“You know that Hester’s going to say one of the words you’ve taught him when she calls and give her a fit of the vapors,” Sophie said as their carriage took them back around the Parc.

“No, he won’t. He’s very well trained. Anyway, I have decided.”

“Decided what?”

Parthenope looked pleased with herself. “That once you and Mrs. Barker have made sure that Mr. Underwood doesn’t get his claws into Kitty Barker, I shall introduce her to one of the Duke of Richmond’s sons. They’re all young sprigs of nobility in desperate need of rich brides, and she’s a rich bride in search of a noble husband. She would suit them admirably.”

Sophie kept her face straight. “What, all of them?”

“No, Miss Goose-cap, just one, thank you. She’d make a properly adoring little wife.”

“Except that the duchess wouldn’t hear of one of her sons marrying a cit’s daughter, no matter how much money she has. And besides, Mrs. Barker and I haven’t planned anything about Mr. Underwood. His name was never even mentioned between us.”

“It didn’t have to be. Besides, I overheard a good part of your talk. Kitty’s conversation doesn’t require much attention, so long as you smile and nod frequently. Or reassure her that Napoléon is not going to march into town the day after tomorrow, which she seems to think likely.”

“She’s not the only one. Papa says rumors like that have been flying everywhere the last few days.” Sophie couldn’t help shivering slightly.

But Parthenope only laughed. “She needs a good dose of Wellington, then. Once we get her into society, she’ll get that well enough.”

*   *   *

Parthenope was as good as her word. Within a few days of her mentioning to two of the elder Richmond daughters, Jane and Georgiana Lennox, that Kitty Barker was an heiress, Sophie was pleased to see her firmly in the center of a group of admiring young men when they arrived at a rout at the Richmonds’ house.

“What about the duchess and her horror of cits?” she asked Parthenope.

“Who knows? Maybe practicality won over snobbery.” Parthenope bent to shake out her skirts, crumpled in the carriage ride over. “How is she doing?”

Sophie studied the group. “Well, I think. She’s wearing a very pretty gown and is listening to something John Lennox is saying and gazing at him as if he’s the Delphic oracle.”

“And no Norris Underwood in sight. Famous. If she keeps that up, she’ll have one of those boys wrapped around her finger in no time.”

Should she hug Parthenope, or shake her? “I thought you weren’t going to do any rescuing of Kitty Barker, you softhearted fraud, you.”

Parthenope sniffed. “I’m not. I’m giving her the means to rescue herself, of course. Oh, look who is over there!” She grabbed Sophie’s arm. “It’s the duke!”

“Of course it’s the duke. I don’t think he’s missed a party yet.” The Duke of Wellington indeed seemed to be at every party, dinner, or ball that they attended, along with his “family” of well-born young aides-de-camp.

“Pooh. It’s good for morale for him to be seen everywhere, so silly people will stop panicking,” Parthenope said loftily. “But he does look to be in fine form tonight.”

“He’s always in fine form,” Papa commented from behind them, a little sardonically. “He’s the one all Europe’s trusting to stop Napoléon, and he’s well aware of the fact.” He coughed slightly. “I also know he’s reputed to be extremely, ah, gallant with the ladies.”

“Yes, isn’t he?” Parthenope stared after him, starry-eyed.

“You just haven’t gotten over his winking at you at Lady Charlotte’s dinner the other night.” Sophie tsked in mock disapproval. “I think I ought to write to James Leland and tell him his future wife has been flirting with the Duke of Wellington.”

Parthenope was spared answering just then because Kitty Barker had caught sight of them and came hurrying over to greet them. “Lady Parthenope! Lady Sophie!” she cried happily. “I’m so pleased to see you! Lady Jane Lennox invited me—such a dear girl, isn’t she? And Lady Georgiana, too—oh, all of them, though I do find her grace, their mama, rather terrifying! I’m so glad the duke is here and will keep us safe from that horrid Bonaparte, because I should be so sad to have to leave Brussels just now when I am finding so many agreeable new friends!”