Lady Pamela (15 page)

“We’ve no butler as yet, as you see,” said Lord Torrance, apologizing for the informality of their welcome.

“You are already at work,” managed Lady Pamela. “Perhaps we should return at a better time.” Her attention was fixed on the duke’s wide shoulders, and the polite phrase–nonsensical, considering the purpose of their visit–slipped out without thought.

“Not at all,” said the duke. “And it would break Cook’s heart. You are our first visitors, and I believe she has been preparing a tea fit for the royal family.”

“Ah. Then the kitchen is once more...”

“Free of rats,” finished Benjamin, smiling. He ushered them inside.

Lady Pamela realized at once that someone–many someones–had been hard at work. The windows of the entrance hall sparkled, the marble floor gleamed underfoot; and, although no rugs warmed the stone of the floor nor any tapestries curbed the draught, the fireplace held a cheerful blaze.

The house
felt
different, as well, thought Pamela, the old sorrows replaced by the efforts and solicitude of her new master. The painting of Helène’s mother still hung over the fireplace, but even Guenevieve’s expression seemed softer, more content.

Lady Detweiler had wandered over to the hearth. “This must be Guenevieve Phillips,” she commented, looking up at the portrait. “Why d’ you suppose the old duke kept her hanging there?”

Lord Torrance, as Pamela knew, had heard the story of the old duke and his daughters from Helène. “It’s a bit of a mystery,” he told Amanda. “Perhaps he felt remorse after she died, and wanted to make amends.”

“Hmm,” said Lady Detweiler. “Better to have made amends with the real woman, while she was yet alive.”

“Indeed.”

He led them on a short tour of the main floor. The entrance foyer itself, although clean, was devoid of furniture. To one side of the hall a set of double French doors led to a music room, freshly scrubbed and aired, but without instruments or music. Lady Pamela admired this room at once for its fine proportions and the beautifully inlaid woodwork of the floor. She could almost see, in her mind’s eye, a pianoforte place right
there
, with perhaps a large candelabra and music stand placed to the side.

“ ’Tis the only thing I’ve yet ordered,” said Lord Torrance, as if he could hear her thoughts. “Ponsonby’s has promised delivery within the fortnight.”

“Oh, how wonderful.”

“I remember how I had enjoyed listening to you play...at Luton.”

Lady Pamela said nothing to this, and the trio moved to a large morning
salon
on the other side of the foyer. This room looked out across the front garden. The windows were in the process of being washed by several footmen, one of whom waved cheerfully to Lord Torrance.

“ ’Eh, milord,” said the man, tipping his cap.

“Good morning, Peter,” acknowledged the duke. “Looks to be a fine job you’re doing.”

“Thank you, milord.”

Lady Pamela was struck by his easy attitude toward the servants. She felt that consideration for those below you in rank was the sign of a true gentleman, and in this respect, as she also remembered from Luton, the duke was an example to his peers.

“The footmen have been doing double duty,” said Lord Torrance. “Washing windows, and anything else that requires a ladder.”

“And the maids?”

“Dusting and scrubbing floors. Then, dusting again.” The duke seemed puzzled. “Mrs. Throckmorton insists upon it, although you would think that once something is dusted, ’twould stay that way.”

Pam and Lady Detweiler both laughed, amused by this very male point of view.

Another set of doors led from the morning
salon
into a formal dining room, so large in scale that Lady Pamela thought it must run the depth of the house. This room was not totally without furniture. A massive, mahogany dining table stood at its center, perhaps only eight feet wide, but so long that it must, thought Pam, have been brought in pieces and assembled in place.

“It seats fifty, I believe,” said Lord Torrance. “We shall need chairs.”

“Good heavens,” said Lady Detweiler. “And you say nothing else was left? No side tables or
trépieds
, not even a lamp or two?”

“Even less, I’m afraid,” said Benjamin, “although it may have turned out for the best. Most of the pieces we did find were worth for nought but kindling.”

“But the table–?”

“That table,” said the duke, sighing, “apparently frightened even the worms.”

So little furniture remained, thought Lady Pam, that the duke really could start afresh, with whatever style he chose. Her mind turned to the most recent volumes of Ackermann’s Repository. The table itself looked as if it would outlast the house, so that would need to be taken into consideration. And fifty chairs...Not an unheard of number, to be sure, but enough to require careful thought. One badly made chair was an annoyance; fifty would be a disaster. Messrs. Crace, Bailey and King had just completed a set of chairs for the Marchioness of Sandringham, as she recalled. They might be just the shop to take it on.

The dining room opened into both a smoking
salon
and the ladies’ retiring room, and from there a covered porch led into the back gardens. Here the duke declared a respite, and leading them back to his study, he called for tea.

* * * *

Lady Millicent Chambers sat in front of her dressing table and frowned at her reflection in the mirror. She was certainly not in the best of looks today, thought Milly. What is it about London that makes one’s hair lie flat and lifeless? And this dress–had she really thought pale yellow would compliment her skin? She considered ringing for Abbey, her maid, and changing her costume once again. Even if her escort for this afternoon’s drive in the park was an aged lord of at least forty years, the thought that she would appear in public looking the veriest drab was mortifying. ’Twas impossible. She must ring for the maid.

Anyone else would have called Lady Millicent quite pretty. Her face was oval, with large, brown eyes and creamy skin; the hair which she was presently regarding with so much distaste was fine, but smooth and gleaming and cascaded past her waist. She had long since abandoned any hope of achieving the current fashion of ringlets and simply gathered the light brown tresses in a soft top-knot, from which tendrils often escaped.

Hardly a sophisticated look, but Milly did allow that her escorts seemed to enjoy the feel of brushing their hands against it as they helped her in and out of carriages. Lady Millicent’s expression softened, and her eyes took on a dreamy cast. One gentleman, in particular, had told her that her hair was like a ‘waterfall of silk.’ Lord Clarence Peabody was the most handsome young man in the whole world, in Milly’s mind, and she was sure that if her parents would only take the time to know him, they would see him as she did. A bit moody, perhaps, but that was only because of his sensitive nature. Clarence could not abide pain of any kind, and Lady Millicent was sure this was the mark of a true gentleman.

“Milady?” Abbey scratched at the door. “Milady, ’tis close on time.”

Bother it all. Lord Castlereaugh would be arriving at any moment and there was no chance to change. Pinching some colour into her cheeks, Millicent gathered up her challis wrap and padded quickly downstairs, hoping that she could manage to avoid her father, the earl. ’Twould be best that he not know how late was her departure with Lord Castlereaugh, so he would have no complaint about how early her return.

* * * *

The cook had, indeed, outdone herself with the tea. A gleaming silver teapot shared pride of place with two enormous silver platters, the latter filled with all manner of cakes and savouries, enough for three times the people present. Lady Detweiler and Pamela proclaimed themselves in
alt
.

“My compliments to your cook,” said Amanda, who had selected several of the scones-and-jam, and was now occupied with a decanter of brandy. “But if we are to eat them all, ’twill take most of the day.”

“I believe,” said the duke, “that Cook is trying to make up for lost opportunities.”

They took a leisurely tea, and Lord Torrance proved an excellent storyteller, explaining as much as he knew of the history of the house and its family. The Torrance family had borne its share of misfits, misanthropes, and dreamers, the present duke’s own story a case in point.

“So you never saw Marchers as a boy?” asked Lady Detweiler.

“Not a single time that I can recall,” said Lord Torrance. “My father and the old duke did not get on well, especially–so I believe–after the death of Guenevieve.”

Lady Pamela had heard much the same from Helène.

“It seems odd,” she commented. “When you were to be the heir.”

Lord Torrance shrugged. “It might have been different if my uncle had died before I left for Virginia. I suppose, in that case, I wouldn’t have gone at all.”

“But–”

“But he died nine months after I left, furious to the last that life had not worked out as he insisted it should.” The duke sighed. “And I thought matters were already settled in the hands of a steward. I saw no reason to come home.”

* * * *

“A good afternoon to you, my lord!”

Lady Millicent waved a cheerful farewell to Lord Castlereaugh, and ran up the front steps to the Banbridge townhome, where the butler waited to show her in. Her face fell the moment the door closed behind her, and she let out a soft groan.

Lord Castlereaugh was forty-five years old if he was a day! Positively ancient, to Millicent’s mind. And his choice of kelly green as the appropriate color for a riding coat was nothing short of atrocious. Millicent started to giggle at the memory and then, with a glance at the door to her father’s study, thought better of it. She began to tiptoe up the front staircase, cautiously avoiding the squeaky fourth step, and had almost reached the top before she heard a familiar, dreaded sound.

The door of the earl’s study, opening.

“Milly,” came her father’s voice. “I should be most pleased if you would join me in the library as soon as you’ve made yourself presentable.”

“Oh, but–”

“At once, Millicent.”

“Yes, father.”

Muttering her protest, Lady Millicent trudged on to her rooms, imagining that she would soon be subjected to another lecture on The Importance of Marrying Well. The earl seemed beset by this subject, and it was a great mystery to his daughter. She was just now eighteen! A proper time to find a husband, to be sure, but why was her father so determined to throw her at any old lord of the
ton
? She was her parents’ only child, and they must wish that she be happy. ’Twas not as if she were some poor cit, who needed to marry merely to put meat upon the table!

The marriage of a young lady of breeding was a complicated subject, thought Milly, her head awash with thoughts of the requisite trousseau. Walking gowns, and riding habits, ball dresses, muffs, pelisses, and redingotes–

Yes. A marriage required the
utmost
in care and deliberation.

Millicent sighed, knowing that her father’s patience would not extend beyond a few more minutes. She scribbled a quick note to Annabelle Fitzroy, her closest friend and confidant. She must talk to Annabelle. Annabelle would know what to do.

* * * *

Benjamin closed the front door behind Lady Pamela and Lady Detweiler and stood for a moment, staring at the oak as if it was transparent, as if he could still see the two women as they walked to their carriage.

Mistress. Strange that the word should have two such different meanings, for from the moment he had first seen her in Marchers, Lord Torrance had been unable to look at Pamela Sinclair without seeing the
mistress
of his home. As she could have been, for some months past.

Why had she refused his offer? wondered Benjamin, a question he had asked himself daily for months, both knowing and not knowing the answer. He had thought Lady Pamela loved him as he loved her. He had been sure she would accept him, so sure that when the time came to say the words he had scarcely given them a thought.

Marry me, said Benjamin. We must be married.

We must?

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Amanda had disappeared. Once again she had quietly slipped away after the work had begun, and was now, no doubt, napping in some out-of-the-way corner of Marchers. Lady Pamela looked up from the pages of Ackermann’s Repository. She was alone in the duke’s library, with nothing but yards of fabric samples for company.

Had she dozed off, Ackermann’s in hand? It was possible, admitted Lady Pam. She considered herself an active, healthy sort of person, not given to sleeping until noon with the rest of the
ton
, but the re-modeling of Marchers had occupied her mornings for the last several weeks, and she was tired. ’Twas one thing to arise early to tea and biscuits and a hour’s letter writing, Lady Pam had discovered, but quite another to be traipsing all over London looking for drapery velvet, or for a furniture maker who would not collapse at the thought of fifty identical dining room chairs.

The door to the library opened and Lord Torrance stepped in. They stared at each other in silence, momentarily frozen. Lady Pamela and the duke had achieved a
détente
of sorts, over the past few weeks, neither referring to past arguments, nor starting anew. Neither had broached the subject of his proposal, of her refusal, or of where they might now stand with one another.

Friends
, he had said one afternoon, only a day or two before.
We can be good friends
. Pam wasn’t sure what she thought of that idea.

“Your pardon,” said Lady Pamela at last. “Lady Detweiler seems to have found yet another place to catch a nap.”

“Of course,” said Lord Torrance. “Where was it the last time?”

“The music room sofa.”

“Ah, yes. Lady Detweiler insisted on that purchase, as I recall.” Lord Torrance sent her a quick, heart-stopping grin. “Shall I send a footman to wake her?”

“I suppose...”

But the duke made no move toward the bell pull, joining her instead on the sofa. He took the volume of Ackermann’s from her hands and glanced at the page. It held, to Pam’s embarrassment, a large coloured plate of a bed. A lady’s bed, four-posted, with a simple frieze of flowers carved at it’s head, and trailing ivy round the base.