Lady Incognita (4 page)

With a start Louisa realized that his lordship was still holding her elbow and regarding her quizzically. Thank goodness that Betsy knew nothing of her sister’s literary activities, Louisa thought. She did not want this most respectable lord to know that she was Lady Incognita.

Louisa cast a look at the sky. “I’m afraid we must be getting back. The coachman will be coming soon.”

“I don’t want to ride in that stuffy old carriage,” said Harry petulantly. Then his face brightened. “I bet his lordship didn’t come in any hired hack.”

His lordship’s black brows came together in a frown. “I came in my barouche, behind a team of bays,” he said. “But I do not like to hear you criticize your sister’s plans. I am sure she had a good reason for hiring a hack.”

Harry, who knew quite well that their finances were not extensive and who really loved his sister, took this rebuke so much to heart that he was heard to mutter an apology.

“That’s more like it,” said his lordship with a smile. “I should not like to take an ungentlemanly boy up in my barouche.”

For a long moment Harry stood speech-less and then he cried, “Oh, Louisa, isn’t he a trump?”

“Harry!” Louisa was sorry to damp the boy’s enthusiasm but he would have to learn. She turned to the man beside her. ‘I am most sorry, milord. Harry shan’t impose on you like that.”

“But Louisa...”

Her look quelled him, but he continued to stand, his heart in his eyes, watching Atherton.

  “Harry is not an imposition,” declared his lordship. “I have been most dreadfully bored lately. He has revived my spirits considerably already and I expect that the ride home together may effect my complete cure.”

“Please, Louisa!”

As Louisa hesitated, hating to rob the boy of such a treat and yet hating also to impose, Atherton spoke again.

“If you are reluctant to leave the boy with me - I am after all a stranger to you - why don’t you and Miss Betsy come along? Surely the hackney driver can see the aunts safely home.”

“Oh, Louisa!” Now Betsy’s eyes also held appeal. Against the two of them how could she possibly hold out? Reluctantly she nodded. “I have no qualms about giving Harry into your care,” she said with a smile. “Unless, of course, the qualms be about his treatment of
you.
But it would be a rare treat for both the children - and for me too.”

“Fine. Then that is settled. We shall get the aunts comfortably ensconced and then we shall have a merry ride back to London.”

Chapter Three

Less than an hour later Louisa found herself comfortably seated beside his lordship in a fashionable barouche behind two beautiful bays. Opposite her, on the other seat, perched a wide-eyed Betsy and a near ecstatic Harry.

Louisa could hardly believe how easily everything had gone. Under his lordship’s guidance the aunts had been settled in the hire coach, with one of his grooms in attendance to insure their complete safety, and sent on their way.

Even Aunt Julia had made no remonstrance at his lordship’s highhandedness, but that, Louisa suspected, was because she had taken a fancy to Atherton’s skull. With a little shudder Louisa hoped that her suspicion was incorrect. For Aunt Julia, when she was after a skull, could forget all her antipathy toward males. But there was no need to worry about that at the moment. Aunt Julia was safely on her way and they would never see the Viscount after today anyway.

  “Oh Louisa!” cried Harry, looking like he might at any moment bounce right off the squabs in his excitement. “Oh Louisa!”

As the driver started off, the children, on their knees behind him so that they could see ahead, grew quiet. Seeing that their attention was held by the scenes they were passing, Louisa turned to his lordship.

“It was really most kind of you to give the children such a treat, Lord Atherton.”

“My name is Philip,” he replied. “It would please me greatly if you would call me by it. I get eternally sick of all these lordships.”

Louisa did not reply. She did not know if she could honor such a request. It would be difficult for her, she knew, to address this man so familiarly.

“Why have I never seen you at the Opera or the theater?” his lordship asked suddenly, those dark eyes fastened on her face.

“We do not have a box at the Opera and we do not go to the theater. The aunts and I lead a rather secluded life.”

His lordship frowned. “But you
are
Baron Penhope’s daughter.”

Louisa flushed. “Yes, but that signifies little.”

“How is it that you never came out?” asked Atherton curiously.

“Oh, I was too busy.”

  As his lordship’s eyebrow shot up in surprise she hastened to explain. “Papa and Mama both died suddenly - some fever that he brought back from India, we think. It was just at the time when I was the age for coming out. Betsy and Harry were little and had to be cared for. And then the aunts came. And I ... I have been busy,” she finished lamely.

“That is regrettable,” he said. “What you need is a husband. Such a household must be a heavy burden for a young girl.”

“I am not a young girl.” Louisa did not quite know why she should have made this statement with so much sorrow. “I am twenty-four years old and I manage our household quite well.”

Atherton bowed his shapely head as though in acquiescence, but his eyes did not indicate any surrender. “A woman should be married,” he said firmly. “She has no business facing the world alone.”

“I did not
choose
to face the world alone,” retorted Louisa, with something close to anger in her voice. “But I am perfectly capable of doing so.”

“I had no intention of impugning your capabilities as a manager,” said his lordship, briefly touching her gloved hand with his own. “I was concerned for
you.
A woman alone does not have an easy time of it in this world.”

Louisa found herself somewhat surprised and touched. She would never have suspected his lordship of knowing anything about difficulties. He looked so forceful, so completely in command, that she simply could not imagine
him
being in any difficulty whatsoever.

“But come, enough of this seriousness. Tell me more about your amazing family. Aunt Julia studies skulls and what is Aunt Caroline’s
forte.
”

Louisa felt a girlish giggle rising in her throat. “Aunt Caroline,” she said, not quite keeping the giggle under control, “raises cats.”

“Raises cats?” said his lordship with so much surprise in his voice that Louisa could not help letting the giggle go free. “Yes,” she said. “You see, the dear departed Colonel ...” She stopped again at the strange look on Atherton’s face and another giggle rose up to choke her. “Oh dear,” she cried, “you must think we are the strangest lot. It’s only that Aunt Caroline always refers to him that way. And since I never knew him, well ... I started to do it too.”

“I quite understand,” said his lordship dryly, but his dark eyes sparkled with merriment. “It appears to me that your life must be anything but dull.”

“Well ...” Louisa replied. “You’re right about that.”

“Aunt Caroline’s Ginger has kittens,” intervened Betsy, turning around on the seat. “They’re just darling, especially Apricot.”

“Apricot?” said his lordship, as though nothing further could amaze him.

“I told her it was a stupid name for a cat,” said Harry, eager not to be for-gotten.

“But it isn’t!” insisted Betsy. “Because, you see, that’s just the color he is. You can tell for yourself when we get home.”

The words echoed in Louisa’s head.
When we get home!
It had not occurred to her before, but wouldn’t propriety insist that his lordship be invited in for some refreshment after such a journey? She was very much afraid it would.

  And the house on Arlington Street, though a very nice house and quite acceptable as houses go, would certainly look rather shabby to this man, the cut and fit of whose clothes proclaimed, even to Louisa’s uneducated eye, a man of the first stage of fashion. Well, she thought to herself, it simply couldn’t be helped. He would have to take the house the way it was. And hopefully he would not gossip about it. For she was rather counting on the fact of being Baron Penhope’s daughter to launch Betsy satisfactorily when the time came.

For some time Louisa was silent. She did not feel that this was particularly noticeable, since the children were chattering happily. His lordship, too, did not seem to be bothered by their chatter. Indeed, he seemed to be enjoying himself.

Momentarily Louisa wondered if he really did get bored as he had said. She herself rarely had enough time for every-thing, what with concerning herself with the children, and the aunts, and the servants, and producing romance after romance. But then, as she considered his lordship’s circumstances - quite probably he had always been excessively wealthy and had everything he wanted - she realized that such plenitude might indeed lead to
ennui.

She turned her attention again to the conversation. “And how many cats at present reside in your establishment?” his lordship was asking Betsy, much as one adult might ask another some question of rather serious import.

  “Let me see,” said Betsy, counting silently on her fingers. When she reached the last, she gave Harry a silent appeal and he obediently raised his fingers to be counted off too. And then, when Betsy reached the last of these and appeared to hesitate, Atherton obligingly offered her his.

Even in his York tan riding gloves Louisa could see that those fingers were long and lean, like the man himself, she thought, as one of her descriptions of Reginald Haversham flashed into her mind.

  He was long and lean, every muscle in his well-proportioned body attesting to a man of action. He was such a man as knew his way around the world, such a man as set the hearts of young maidens to beating with yearnings hitherto unknown to them. And when those same maidens...

“Twenty-five,” said his lordship, in a voice that did not quite hide his shock.

“She’s right, sir,” asserted Harry. “Of course, most of them stay out in the stable - there’s no horses in it now.”

“And if Aunt Caroline finds homes for the new kittens,” added Betsy, “why we shall have less.”

“Yes, I see.” His eyes shifted to Louisa’s face. “And if I don’t miss my guess - and I seldom do -” he added, lowering his voice so that it reached Louisa’s ears alone, “you are the sole support of this whole ill-assorted menagerie.”

The children, seeing that the conversation was again between Louisa and his lordship, swung back around to kneel on the seat and watch the driver and his whip.

“Aunt Caroline brought her income,” Louisa said, conscious that she was flushing.

“And I wager that it barely feeds her ‘dear kitties,’“ returned Atherton, still in the same confidential tone.

“How did you ... ? That is, we manage quite well,” Louisa faltered.

“I
know,”
said his lordship, “because I remember her Colonel Pickering. A worse man at the gaming table I have never seen. And he appeared to have equally poor luck with his wagers in White’s betting book. It stands to reason that his property was highly encumbered.”

“I do not find it proper to discuss Aunt Caroline’s affairs,” said Louisa, with what she hoped was firmness. This sort of conversation was most embarrassing to her.

His lordship did not take umbrage, he merely nodded gracefully. “Quite right. However, I take some special interest in your case because the Colonel once did my father a great kindness.”

“But Aunt Caroline does not know you!” Louisa protested. This was beginning to sound like something she had written.

Atherton shrugged his well-clad shoulders. “The kindness was done at the gaming table. I doubt that the dear departed Colonel discussed such matters with his lady.”

Louisa, who could not help smiling at his use of “dear departed Colonel,” could find nothing amiss with this information. And perhaps the truth
was
stranger than fiction.

“What is the betting book at White’s?” she asked intrigued by the sound of it. “It seems I heard Papa mention it several times long ago, but Mama always hushed him up and made me leave the room.”

His lordship’s dark eyes sparkled. “The members of White’s are sporting men. They will wager on anything: births, deaths, marriages, battles, etc. These wagers are recorded in the betting book. The present one has been in existence since 1743. The previous one was lost in a fire.”

“I see,” said Louisa. “Another effort to fight the
ennui
that rich lords are prey to.”

Those dark eyes bored into hers. “Do I detect a note of envy?” he asked, raising one eyebrow in that quizzical way of his.

“I?” said Louisa. “I certainly have no envy of men who game away their substance.”

“But the substance is another story, is it not?” replied Atherton astutely.

  Louisa flushed, irritated that she should have so revealed  her  true  feelings. “Doubtless,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster, “had such men faced the prospect of keeping together a family they would have been more circumspect.”

“Louisa,” Atherton’s whisper barely reached her ears. “Men have lost whole estates, or upwards of twenty or thirty thousand pounds in a sitting. And they
were
men with families.” His voice softened even further. “Your own father...”

“What do you know of my father?” Louisa turned frightened gray eyes on him.

“You forget,” said his lordship gravely. “I have been out of shortcoats for some time now. I saw your father often at White’s. He, too, liked the gaming tables.”

Louisa found tears gathering in her eyes and winked them back rapidly. It was no news to her that Papa had been a gamester, but she did not like to hear such things from a stranger.

Suddenly she found that he had taken her gloved hand in his own. “I did not mean to distress you, really I did not. I meant only to indicate that I’m aware you may be in financial difficulties. And because of the debt of honor that my father owed Colonel Pickering, for that great kindness, I should be glad to assist you in any way possible.”

This very considerate speech, which would have left any sane-minded woman eternally grateful, caused Louisa to sit up stiffly and reply in a voice that could not by the greatest stretch of the imagination be graced by that adjective. “That is most kind of you, milord, but I assure you, my Papa left us quite well provided for. I am capable of managing very well.”