Joan Smith (15 page)

“Well, Master Jackanapes! Enjoying yourself, are you?” Luten asked.

Peter felt that those eyes were burrowing right into his skull, but he tried to answer bravely. “Very much, Uncle. I don’t know why you are in one of your rages. You knew I was coming to Newmarket.’’

“I had the notion you were coming with Nicolson, not Miss Barten.”

“I did. Nick and I are putting up at the
...
”

Luten cut him short. “What sort of establishment have you set up for the woman?”

“I?” Peter asked, his voice rising to a squeak of protest. “Really, Uncle, I don’t know where you got the cork-brained idea Miss Barten is anything to me. Nick is sweet on her, to be sure. As to where she is putting up, why, she stays with her aunt and brother at Northfield.”

“She palmed the ‘aunt’ off on you as well, did she? Do explain, cawker, for I cannot believe even
you
are gullible enough to have let her talk you into billeting a man as well, who is the alleged brother.”

“Alleged? Demme, I have known Norman Barten anytime these eight years—an excellent old Warwick family. We were at Harrow and Cambridge together. I nearly died of shame when Miss Barten told me what had happened in London. I gave her and her aunt the use of my apartment for a few days while they waited for Norman to hire a lodge for them. That’s all. Norman is training up a filly for the races, and the ladies are keeping house for him.”

Luten listened, hoping for discrepancies in this story. Finding none, he attacked on another front and was again repulsed. “Since when have you taken into your head to hire yourself an apartment in London?”

“Why, you told me yourself it wasn’t the thing, squeezing in with Nick. I only sublet a few square inches. To tell the truth, I’m sorry I hired it. But it was going at a great bargain. Why, the place would have been gone in two minutes if I hadn’t moved fast. And I’ll use it after the races.”

“What about those nightly visits to Conduit Street?”

“What about them? And they weren’t
nightly
either. Naturally I visited Norman’s family when they were in town and had no other acquaintances. I’ve stayed at Walbeck Park any number of times. Trudie was kind enough to help me out a little with my Latin, for you know Mama is in a pucker at my being plucked last term.”

The story had the ring of probability to it, and Luten sought for any possible flaw. “I’m not quite a fool, Peter. Ladies of quality do not purvey Latin lessons.”

“There was no purveying about it. Her papa was a famous scholar, you must know, and he taught his daughter Latin; she seemed to have a head for it. I took Nick around to call a few times, and . , .”

“It’s news to me if Sir Charles Nicolson has any interest in Latin. He’d do better to learn English, and you too.”

“To tell the truth, Nick wasn’t much interested in the Latin, but he developed a tendre for Miss Barten, and since she’s perfectly eligible, there was no harm in giving him a hand.”

“Perfectly eligible ladies are not given a Kent Street Ejection,” Luten said. He was playing his last trump card, and he knew it.

“It’s infamous carrying on, if you want my opinion. If the ladies wasn’t a pair of greenheads fresh off the farm, they’d have hired a solicitor and taken old Nettie Rolfe to court. She’s the one set tongues wagging. I can’t imagine who’d be fool enough to listen to her ranting.”

But Luten knew and was writhing under it. “I thought there was a brother who should have done something about it.”

“Norman wasn’t there, and Trudie is such a thoughtful girl she didn’t want to trouble him with the story. She really is very sweet and generous when you get to know her, Uncle.”

“Sweet and generous girls” did not make laughing stocks of their acquaintances. The whole thing was hard to swallow, as it put Luten in such an unattractive light. Miss Barten was angling after Nicolson instead of Peter. That was his only error. Nicolson, while not a close relative, was a connection. A wide spreading of his paternal wings might include Nick. “So it’s Nick she has in her eye, is it?”

“She only tolerates him, if you want the truth. For one thing, she’s three or four years older than Nick.”

“That old?” Luten asked, surprised.

“She’s twenty-three, but she has no town bronze, and seems younger. The Bartens are more than respectable. She has a dowry of five thousand—a respectable heiress is as good as Nick can hope to do. The Nicolsons would likely jump at the chance of attaching her.”

“They wouldn’t be eager to see young Nick marry an ape leader. Twenty-three is a bit over the hill for Nick.”

“He’d be better off settled down. I’ve heard you say so yourself. Between his portion and her own, they could buy up a tidy little estate somewhere—set up as landowners, have a few kids.”

This dismal future was put forth in a perfectly perfunctory way. Luten listened, hearing echoes of a few family conversations. The truth was that a Miss Barten with five thousand pounds was as good as Nicolson could be expected to do. In other words, he had been made a fool of again.

Worse, he had made a fool of himself. Miss Barten, if Peter was telling the truth, was more victim than fiend, but this did not totally acquit her of having led him a merry chase. The score was by no means settled. Merely it would have to be handled in a different manner. The black anger was shading to gray, a sort of antic quality creeping over him. Some playful retaliation must be given for the affair at White’s and the futile trip to Tunbridge Wells, but he had caused quite enough real and unnecessary trouble to Miss Barten.

Looking at her in this new light, he noticed that her appearance had undergone another metamorphosis. Her face was no longer conniving and grasping, but intelligent. The light in her eyes was caused by a memory of some esoteric Latin extract she’d been dipping into. It would be a pleasant change to converse with a lady who took an interest in something other than gossip and fashion.

“In that case, I believe I owe the lady an apology,” he said.

“You certainly do. And for God’s sake don’t tell Norman what you thought, or he’d be obliged to blow your brains out. That is to say, he can’t shoot worth a tinker’s curse, which is why Trudie don’t want him to know the things you did, for he’d be obliged to try.”

“I suppose you have all given this a good deal of discussion?” Luten asked, brow rising in ire.

“Naturally we had to sort things out—Nick and Trudie and I. The aunt don’t know the half of it either. Trudie was nearly in tears when she told me the story. The poor thing felt it was her fault, in some way, that the whole town was treating her like an old shoe. She didn’t know which way to turn.”

Peter felt he had handled the matter with perfect discretion. He knew his uncle well enough to realize that his frowning pause was caused not by anger but by embarrassment—and something else. Some emotion that looked very much like regret but soon looked more like resolution. The two stayed talking till the country dance was over. Nicolson began hastening Miss Barten back to her aunt at its end, but the fleeing couple were soon overtaken by Luten’s long, purposeful strides.

“Miss Barten!” he called from a few yards away.

She stopped in her tracks, turned slowly, and stared at  him. Her first reaction was fear, pure and simple. As she noticed the doubtful face of her pursuer, she took courage. “Lord Luten? Or is it Mr
.
Mandeville this evening?” she inquired. Her tone hovered between politeness and irony.

“Take your pick. In either case, I wish to apologize.”

“I should think so!” Nicolson exclaimed. There was no doubt about
his
tone. It was all relief. He added in a low aside to Miss Barten, “Peter has talked him around. I shall nip off now.”

Luten offered her his arm. She accepted it reluctantly and they walked off together. “Champagne?” he offered. “The country dances are tiring, are they not?”

“I’m tuckered out, and so very het up,” she admitted. Luten bit his lip at these signs of rusticity. “But there’s no champagne. You’re not in London now.”

“Nor even in Tunbridge Wells. The gods don’t sip on orgeat, I bet,” he laughed. She was quite shocked that he should refer openly to his disgrace, and do it with such good humor too.

“Don’t pretend to be shocked, Miss Barten! The quotation is your own. Also the location. Now that I know the truth, I’m surprised it wasn’t Coventry you chose for our love nest. I’m sure that’s where you were wishing me.”

“That’s much too close to home, milord. I hail from Warwick myself, you must know.”

“You wouldn’t wish to burden the county with such an unregenerate idiot as Lord Luten. I have to concur with you there.”

They proceeded to the end of the dance room, where the refreshments were being served. Luten took a glass of fruit punch, and Trudie asked for orgeat. After one sip, she was ready to condemn it. “This is more barley water than anything else. We serve it to our field hands in hot weather, only not in such pretty thimbles, of course.”

He found her frank country manners charming and decided to confer a treat on Miss Barten. “I shall make a promise here and now to serve you champagne when you attend my ball, later in the Season.” He smiled.

She only looked startled, and not at all gratified. “Did you enjoy Tunbridge Wells, milord?” she asked archly.

“Not so much as you did, I suspect.”

“You really did go, then? I was by no means sure that elegant rattler and prad you sent ‘round would accomplish the trip.”

“They didn’t attempt it. I drove my own rig down.”

“That was wise of you.”

“And are you not going to apologize for
your
part in the infamous affair, Miss Barten? I think I got the worse end of the bargain.”

“I’d bear that in mind in future, if I were you, Lord Luten. I’m sorry the misunderstanding occurred. I can’t truthfully say I regret having repaid you for your behavior.”

Luten blinked at her intransigence, and after he had gone out of his way to charm her too. Was she not aware that he stood very near the summit of social London, while she inhabited the outskirts of Newmarket and Warwick? “The virtue of truth can be overdone. One usually
pretends
at least to regret misdeeds,” he pointed out.

“Yes, I suppose so,” she answered vaguely. She sipped the orgeat as she scanned the dance floor beyond, looking for Mr. O’Kelly.

Luten felt the onset of impatience and asked, “So it is Nicolson who is your particular friend now, is it?”

It
was no longer necessary to maintain this lie. “Both Nicolson and Clappet are my friends. You don’t object to my being an acquaintance of your nephew, I hope? He spent enough weekends with us at Walbeck Park,” she added, quite unnecessarily.

“Not in the least. My only objection is that Peter didn’t  make you acquainted with his family. It’s odd he did not do so.”

“It’s Lady Clappet,” she explained. “She is quite a queer old nabs. But you must know that—she’s some relation to you as well, I expect?”

His lips thinned noticeably. “My sister,” he informed her.

“That would explain it.”

Luten was ready to mount his high horse, till he observed the glint of laughter in her eyes. A strange, undefinable color—those eyes. Were they blue, green, hazel? After a pause long enough to determine the eyes were hazel, he answered, “Despite the family tendency to oddity, I am not quite so eccentric as Lady Clappet. Peter might have introduced you to me. In any case we have met now, and I hope we may see each other again. Peter tells me you have hired Johnson’s lodge. May I do myself the honor of calling on you there one day?”

“No! You mustn’t think of it!” she exclaimed sharply. “What will my aunt think? She believes you are Mr. Mandeville.”

“So I am. Luten is my title. I also have a name, which I use occasionally when dealing with
...
” He stopped short. There was something about this outspoken lady that called forth a similar manner of speech from him.

“No, really it would be better if you stay away.”

The statement angered Luten to the core. He wasn’t accustomed to hearing himself turned off so abruptly by young ladies of meager fortune. His chin went up, his shoulders stiffened, and he stood trying vainly to think of some cutting riposte. But all he could think of to say was “Why?”

“I told her about the drive—that is, something about it. Not the whole, or she’d have had Bow Street down on your head. And besides, you never paid me for the Latin lesson.”

Luten’s cheeks were suffused with a blush at this reminder of past indelicacies, and perhaps the fleeting memory of dreams in which he had anticipated future ones as well. “The payment is easily remedied at least.”

Miss Barten did not brush this token speech aside but considered it practically. “You can give it to Peter. He’ll see that I get it. I can’t be seen taking money from you here.”

“A crown, wasn’t it?” he asked.

“Yes, I shan’t charge interest.” Her darting eyes discovered Mr. O’Kelly entering at the doorway, and she excused herself, in her usual blunt fashion. “I have to go now.”

“I hoped we might have the next dance.”

“No, thank you. I’ll be busy. Good evening.”

With the barest sketch of a curtsy, she hurried away, leaving Luten alone feeling foolish. He joined a party of friends from London, without again glancing at Miss Barten, or at least taking some pains not to be seen staring at her.

The affair, in both their minds, was terminated, but unsatisfactorily so. There remained some rankling sensation of not having exacted sufficient revenge on her part, and of new offense on Luten’s. He had offered a generously decked olive branch, and she had spurned it. She had refused to stand up with him, had denied him the privilege of calling on her, and hadn’t shown the least interest at that hint that he would be pleased to see her at his ball. Those invitations were not freely sprinkled about by any means. Many a noble deb dangled after one in vain.

Mr. O’Kelly attracted a good deal of attention when he appeared in the doorway, resplendent in his black evening clothes, his wide shoulders nearly filling the frame. Many female hearts were set aflutter, but it was Miss Barten’s that rose like a thrush when Okay smiled and advanced toward her.