Friday's Child (22 page)

He took her hand and pressed it, assuring her warmly that the obligation was on his side, that he had done delightfully, never wished to spend a more pleasant evening. Then, as the Viscount offered him no encouragement to linger, he said goodnight and departed.

“I did not expect to find you at home so soon, Sherry,” Hero said innocently. “Was it flat, after all, your party?”

“If I had known—though to be sure I do not know how I could have done so!—that you had a desire to go to the Assembly, I would have taken you myself,” said his lordship stiffly. “I do not know why you should tell me that you had the headache, and then, when you had fobbed me off, have gone to it with Wrotham!”

“Fobbed you off?” exclaimed Hero, quite dismayed. “Oh, Sherry, no! I thought you did not wish to go! Oh, don’t say you did wish to go! I would so much, much rather have had you with me than George!”

“I am flattered!” said his lordship. “I had thought you dealt delightfully with George!”

“Yes, indeed I did, but I had rather be with you than with anyone. Sherry, why did you not join us? It would have been beyond anything!”

“Well, as a matter of fact, I did think I might do so,” said Sherry, thawing. “Only it was after eleven when I reached the curst place, and nothing would prevail upon Willis to let me enter.”

“Oh, Sherry!” Hero cried, flushing in distress. “Had I known that, all my pleasure would have been destroyed! Oh, how vexatious! how sorry I am! It is all my fault for having been so stupid as to fancy you did not wish to go!”

“I must own that considering I was perfectly ready to escort you,” began his lordship in an injured tone, “I do not know why—” He stopped, meeting her anxious, uncritical gaze. “No, it wasn’t your fault, and you know it wasn’t!” he said. “I didn’t wish to go, but you are not to be giving up your amusements for any such cause as that. Dash it, Gil was right!”

“Gil? Why, what has he to do with it, pray?”

“Oh, nothing! Only he would have it I was a fool, and curst selfish, and I dare say I may be, but I tell you, this, Kitten—”

“How dared Gil say such a thing?” interrupted Hero hotly. “It is the wickedest untruth! You are no such thing! I should think he must have been quite foxed to have said it!”

“No, no, only slightly disguised!” the Viscount assured her. “Anyway, it don’t signify, only I wish I had taken you, and I’m sorry, Kitten. There!”

She took his outstretched hand and carried it to her cheek. “Oh, Sherry, how silly! I think
you
must be slightly disguised, to be offering me an apology for such an absurdity!”

“Sober as a judge!” the Viscount asserted. “I don’t say I wasn’t a trifle bosky when I left Cribb’s, but that’s long since. Damme, I’ve been waiting for you to come home these three hours, with nothing to do but read some dashed book or other!”

Hero found the thought of his spending an evening at home with a book so droll that she broke into a peal of laughter, which was so infectious that his lordship was obliged to join in. They went upstairs together in excellent accord, and when they parted outside Hero’s door, Sherry did her the honour of informing her that she was a good little puss, and that he had always had a fondness for her.

Chapter 12

Hero might have enjoyed the evening spent at Almack’s Assembly Rooms, but it had not been one of unmixed pleasure for her escort, while for one other person it had been an evening of almost unleavened annoyance. Miss Milborne, seeing the most ardent of her admirers enter the rooms with Hero on his arm, had suffered something in the nature of a shock. Never before had she seen George in attendance on any other lady than herself! When he came to Almack’s it was to form one of her court; and when she did not dance with him he had a gratifying habit of leaning against the wall and watching her, instead of soliciting some other damsel to dance with him. Now, on the heels of the most obdurate quarrel they had had, here he was, looking perfectly cheerful, actually laughing at something Hero had said to him, his handsome head bent a little to catch her words. Hero, too, was in very good looks; in fact, Miss Milborne had not known that her little friend could appear to such advantage. She could never, of course, aspire to such beauty as belonged to the Incomparable, but Miss Milborne was no fool, and she was obliged to own that there was something particularly taking in the bride’s smile and mischievous twinkle. Watching George, she came to the reluctant conclusion that he was fully sensible of his partner’s charm. He had given his adored Isabella nothing more than a common bow upon catching sight of her, and it was plain that he meant to devote his evening to Hero. Miss Milborne could think of a dozen reasons to account for his gallanting Hero to the ball, but none of them satisfied her; nor could the distinguishing attention paid to her by her ducal admirer quite restore her spirits. She was even a trifle pettish with Severn, a circumstance which later drew down upon her the slightly tart reproaches of her Mama, who had no notion of her daughter’s playing fast and loose with such a dazzling suitor.

The truth was that Miss Milborne was in the uncomfortable situation of a young lady who had had her head turned as much by the ambition of her parent as by the admiration which had been hers ever since she had first appeared in Polite circles. She had been educated with a view to making a brilliant match, and until Lord Wrotham had swept stormily into her orbit no other idea than that of obliging her Mama had so much as crossed her head. But Lord Wrotham’s was a disturbing presence, and it was not long before the Beauty’s docile and well-ordered ambition was in direct conflict with the scarcely recognized promptings of her heart. For no one could seriously consider that Wrotham would provide any girl with a brilliant match. His birth was certainly unexceptionable, but it was common knowledge that his estates were grossly encumbered; and instead of being, like his ducal rival, a dignified young man of notable steadiness of character, he was wild to a fault. He had quite as many libertine tendencies as Miss Milborne had complained of in Sherry; he was a gamester; he mixed with low persons such as prize-fighters and jockeys; and his hot temper led his anxious friends to prophesy that one day he would kill his man, and be obliged to fly the country. Miss Milborne knew that the very thought of allying herself to him was an absurdity, and she made many praiseworthy attempts to put him out of her mind. After all, he was not the only one of her suitors to attract her. She had been by no means impervious to Sherry’s careless charm, for instance; and she found one Sir Barnabas Crawley very much to her taste, not to mention the elusive Sir Montagu Revesby. In her more honest moments, she was bound to own to herself that nothing but his high degree appealed to her in the Duke of Severn; but when George had been more than usually tiresome she could convince herself that she would be very comfortable if wedded to a nobleman who would certainly never give her a moment’s anxiety, and who would treat her with unfailing, if slightly tedious, civility and consideration. He was, in addition, extremely wealthy, but since she was herself a considerable heiress she was able to banish such a mercenary consideration as this from her mind. Nothing, in fact, was farther from Miss Milborne’s admirably trained mind than to marry to disoblige her family, as the saying was, yet when she saw Wrotham enter the ballroom at Almack’s with Hero on his arm, a pang of something so like jealousy shot through her that she was shocked at her own meanness of spirit, and felt all her pleasure in the evening to have been destroyed. Nor was she able to think well of Hero for purloining George in this shameless way, and—as though that were not injury enough!—contriving to keep him in apparently sunny spirits all the evening.

The reflection that he was the second of her suitors to be filched from her by Hero could not but cross her mind. It was all very well to say that Sherry had married poor little Hero in a fit of pique: possibly he had done so, but anyone who believed that Sherry was eating his heart out for his first love would have had to have had less than common sense or a greater degree of conceit than Miss Milborne. The dreadful suspicion that the passion her admirers declared themselves to feel for her was nothing more than an evanescent emotion, soon recovered from, could not be stifled, and made Miss Milborne wretched indeed. She waited for George to come across the room to her side, which he would surely do as soon as another man relieved him of the charge of Hero. Hero was led on to the floor by Marmaduke Fakenham to dance the waltz: George strolled away to exchange greetings with a group of his friends. Miss Milborne, too mortified to remember that she had refused to receive him when he had called to pay her a morning visit, could only suppose that his passion for her had burnt itself out, and immediately began to flirt with the dashing Sir Barnabas. Later in the evening she found herself partaking of lemonade in the refreshment saloon beside Hero, and she was excessively affectionate to Hero, even, with the utmost nobility of character, telling her that her dress was the prettiest in the room, and the new way she had of doing her hair quite ravishing.

“I observe,” said Mrs Milborne on the way home, “that our little friend has lost no time in acquiring a cicisbeo! Well! I wish her joy of young Wrotham! He seemed to me to be quite épris in that direction. It is all of a piece: I dare say if I have said once that he is incurably volatile I have said it a dozen times. But I did not quite like to see you dancing twice with Sir Barnabas Crawley, my love. I am sure a most elegant creature, but
not
a man of substance. To flirt a little—but always in a ladylike way, remember!—can do no harm, but I fancy Severn did not quite like to see Crawley make you the object of such persistent gallantry. I just mention the matter, my dear, and no more, for I am sure I need have no fear for your good sense.”

“None, Mama,” said Miss Milborne in a colourless tone.

She was seated in her Mama’s barouche next day outside a shop in Bond Street, waiting for Mrs Milborne to accomplish the purchase of a bottle of Distilled Water of Pineapples (to discourage wrinkles), when Sherry came sauntering down the street, looking rather rakish, with his curly-brimmed beaver set at an angle on his fair head, and the drab Benjamin he wore (for the autumn morning was chilly), hanging negligently open to allow the interested a glimpse of a tightly fitting coat of superfine, a very sporting waistcoat, and a natty pair of yellow buckskins. He stopped beside the barouche, and stayed chatting to Miss Milborne with his usual good humour, and a complete absence of the sort of constraint that might have been expected in a young gentleman finding himself
vis-a-vis
the lady who had so lately rejected his proffered suit. He had been at Jackson’s Saloon, attempting like every other young blood of the Fancy to pop in a hit over the ex-champion’s guard, and was now on his way to White’s, where he had an assignation with Mr Ringwood. He paid Miss Milborne an extravagant compliment or two, but as he followed these up by saying that now he came to think of it he had not seen her very lately, she was in no danger of taking his gallantry seriously.

“You were not at Almack’s last night, or you might have seen me,” she remarked.

His brow darkened, for although he bore his wife no grudge for the events of the previous evening, he still felt unaccountably aggrieved whenever he thought of George’s share in them. “No,” he said shortly.

Miss Milborne, quick to catch the note of dissatisfaction in his voice, would have been less than human had she forborne to probe further. She cast down her eyes to the lavender kid gloves she wore and said, smoothing them over her wrists: “I was glad to see Lady Sheringham, however, and in such spirits.”

The Viscount’s blue gaze became fixed on her face. “Oh!” he said. "In spirits, was she? Ha!”

“She was much admired,” said Miss Milborne calmly. “Indeed, I wish you had been there, for she looked delightfully!”

“I’ll take precious good care I’m there the next time she goes to that dam—dashed place!” promised his lordship.

“I am sure Lord Wrotham took excellent care of her.”

“Well, I’ll thank him to take care of someone else’s wife!” said his lordship irascibly.

Miss Milborne began to feel alarmed. She abandoned her formal manners and asked directly: “Sherry, you are not jealous of George, are you?”

“Who said anything about being jealous of George?” retorted the Viscount. “I suppose I need not care to have him walking off with my wife, without so much as a by your leave, or—However, that’s neither here nor there! But what the devil he wants with my Kitten when he’s been making a cake of himself over you for the past six months is more than I can fathom!”