Lord Devere's Ward (13 page)

Macbeth
at Drury Lane two evenings hence, wasn’t it exciting?

asked Pauline. Louisa had found several ells of the loveliest silver-blue sarcenet; did cousin Kay not want some to trim her blue bonnet?

She heard them all as if they were very far away, or as if they were speaking another tongue, and she a visitor to their strange land. She shook herself loose of her mood and reentered their world, feeling as though she’d been insufferably rude. Lady Anna watched her with a thoughtful expression. “Did my brother visit, cousin Kay?”

Kate lifted her teacup, pleased to see that her hand did not shake. “Yes, we discussed the events of yesterday.”

“And?”

“And, nothing. He said nothing, merely recalled an engagement elsewhere.” Kate did not want to mention the presence of her uncle in London while Louisa and Pauline were in the room. She continued.

“He seemed to be in a peculiar mood.”

“No more so than some, I vow.” Anna eyed Kate.

“Do you accompany us tonight to the Lambs? Lady Caroline is expected to read from her new novel.”

“May it be as scandalous as her first.” Louise laughed. Lady Caroline Lamb’s outrageous conduct concerning the poet George Gordon, Lord Byron, had not been forgotten. Her doings never ceased to amuse the ton. Society had been greatly titillated by the publication of
Glenarvon
, the melodramatic satire which slashed Lady Caroline’s own family to shreds.

All hoped her new book would be equally shocking.

“No, I do not believe I shall be abroad tonight,” said Kate. She did not feel she could tolerate shallow social intercourse in her current emotional state. “But what is this excursion to Drury Lane?”

“It’s for Pauline, mostly. Kean in
Macbeth
,” Louisa said.

“As though you won’t enjoy it,” grumbled Pauline.

“It’s for all of us.” Anna sought to pour oil on the troubled waters.

“Mother, we had such a fine time at Lady Ursula’s, p’raps we should invite her to share our box?”

“Why, what a thoughtful idea, Pauline. Yes, you may write to Lady Ursula today and invite her, with my compliments. Shall we also invite Bryan St.

Wills?” Anna tipped her head to one side to regard both Kate and Louisa.

Louisa winced while Kate agreed. “And, ma’am, I saw the nicest girl at the luncheon. Her name’s Lady Sybilla Farland. If there’s room in the box, might we invite her also?”

“That would make a party of seven, all females but for St. Wills and your father.”

“Poor Bryan!” mocked Louisa.

Her mother ignored her. “We shall also invite Quinn. Kay, I am afraid your new friend will have to wait for another occasion.”

“We could ask Sir Willoughby,” suggested Pauline pertly.

Louisa blushed and held her tongue while Anna considered. “Well, the dessert denied is the tasty morsel most sought. Correct, Louisa? Yes, that would be fine.”

Louisa bounced in her seat.

Her mother fixed her with a quelling stare. “I’ll write to him myself. Shall we serve a light dinner for the party before we set out? Perhaps Quinn or St.

Wills knows of an escort for Lady Ursula, to round out the party.” Anna speculated aloud. “You do understand, Lou, that you will not in any case be partnered with Sir Willoughby.”

Kate could see, glancing at Louisa’s excited, flushed face, that Louisa had not thought about the details of the evening. “Why, what do you mean, Mother?” Louisa asked.

“It is unlikely Lady Ursula will attend. I’ve certainly never seen her at the theatre. So, as ranking peer, your uncle will escort me and you will be partnered by your father,” Anna stated calmly. “To do anything else would be quite inappropriate.”

“Who cares about propriety?” snapped Louisa.

“We do. If your tendre for Sir Willoughby does not turn out as you hope, you will be glad of my caution,” her mother said. “Don’t scorn my advice.

Restraint, Louisa. Men are hunters. They love the chase, and will treasure the object of their desire all the more if it has led them a merry dance.” Louisa’s brow furrowed as Pauline asked, “Who will escort me?”

Anna thought. “St. Wills, if he attends. ’Twill give you a touch of adulthood, child.” Anna ruffled Pauline’s hair. “And you, Kate, will accompany Sir Willoughby.”

“Stuck with the boring baronet.” Kate looked at Louisa as Pauline and Anna laughed. “I’d trade with you, Lou, but I’m afraid Lady Anna has laid down the law.”

Chapter Eight

Bryan St. Wills lost no time in pursuing his new love interest. Though he had been sent down from Oxford he was resolved not to neglect his education in any way; he merely set himself to acquiring different skills. Gambling and wenching, cocking and racing were the chief pleasures of young males of his social class. Bryan was determined to experience all.

The very day after Lady Damaris’ luncheon, Bryan presented himself at the door of the Farland mansion at Cavendish Gardens. Again dressed in green, he attempted to make himself exceptional among his dandyish peers by wearing only the one distinctive color. His waistcoat and unmentionables were lemon yellow. His groom walked his horses, tethered to his curricle, around Cavendish Square.

Bryan hoped to take Sybilla driving in Hyde Park at the fashionable hour of five o’clock.

The door was opened by a footman who

informed him that Lord James and Lady Mathilda were both absent from the household. Bryan presented his card and begged to be honored by the company of Lady Sybilla. The drawing room in which he waited was decorated in the first stare of fashion.

Evidently Lady Farland spent much time selecting furniture and wallpaper.

Sybilla dashed in, stripping off a pair of heavy rough gloves. Bryan stared. He’d never met any lady, other than his friend Kate, who felt sufficiently secure in her person to meet a gentlemen dressed in anything other than her finest. Lady Sybilla wore a drab stuff gown and appeared to have dirt on her boots.

“Good afternoon, sir,” she said, extending a very white, very soft hand in Bryan’s direction. As he bent over it, he noticed the well-kept member belied her grubby state. “If you would care to give me a few minutes to make myself presentable…”

She trailed out of the room. As she left, he could hear her ordering the footman to bring tea, “And whiskey, if the gentleman desires it.” Not fifteen minutes later Sybilla was back, perfectly attired. Though Sybilla might not care about her appearance, her lady’s maid evidently knew her business. Today Lady Sybilla was dressed in pale jade silk.

Bryan dropped his teacup back into his saucer with a clatter. The cool elegance of the ensemble did not disguise Sybilla’s pleasure in his visit, revealed by her sparkling eyes and sweet smile.

“My curricle is outside,” he said. “Perhaps a drive?”

“After tea, yes. I’m parched.” She poured for herself, then freshened his cup.

He hesitated fractionally, then asked, “You are a particular friend of Lady Kate Scoville?”

“Yes, she told me that we two are among the few who are in on her charade.”

“If you are good friends, perhaps you will not mind me asking. Umm, in what pursuit were you engaged when I interrupted?”

“Oh, that!” Her rich laughter trilled. “Please do not reveal my pastime. It shames my parents greatly. I am a peasant, you see.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“So my father says,” murmured Sybilla demurely.

“I have a passion for gardening, flowers in particular.

May I show you?”

The back garden of the mansion was surprisingly large for a London house, large enough for her to express herself in flowers, explained Sybilla.

“You have a particular fondness for sweet peas, I observe.”

“Yes.” She buried her face in a pot of bright pink blooms, humming as she inhaled their spicy scent. “I am engaged in breeding true colors, particularly blue.”

“Blue?”

She turned an excited countenance to Bryan.

“Have you never wondered why there are few purely blue flowers, sir?”

Bryan blinked. “Can’t say I have.”

“Well, I have. It is very difficult,” she informed him. “Most sweet peas are pink or white. Reds tend to be orangey—a horrible shade—and the blues are purplish, really. I am growing pure blue and red flowers. Each succeeding generation I come closer to my goal.”

Despite his complete disinterest in the subject matter, Bryan found himself warming to the conversation, and to the lady. Sybilla’s fascination with her flowers was infectious. Her movements, as she walked through her orderly flower garden, were swift and deft, and Bryan was struck by her resemblance to an inquisitive, restless hummingbird as she went from flower to flower. She even hummed as she fluttered around the garden.

“How, precisely, do you breed the flowers?”

“Oh, it is very complicated. Most flowers breed due to the motion of bees among them, drifting from blossom to blossom. I must protect the buds I wish to propagate.” She gestured at several stalks, which sported papers tied over their tips. “I transfer the pollen from one flower to another, using a paintbrush. I don’t know exactly why, but I suspect if I breed the bluest flowers together, the color will eventually come true. Also with the reds.” She waved at a different corner of the yard, where riotous red sweet peas dominated the landscape.

Impressed, Bryan concluded that there was a thinking mind behind those fine dark eyes. “I gather your parents do not approve of your hobby, Lady Sybilla.”

“No, but they do find it useful. I have taken to filling my father’s study and my mother’s boudoir with flowers. I have found sweet peas result in sweet tempers.”

He laughed and offered her his arm.

* * *

The evening of the theatre party, Kate stood in her bedroom adjusting her ensemble. She had not seen or heard from her guardian since that dreadful scene in the garden, after which he had walked out of the drawing room and, apparently, out of any meaningful part in her life. Try as she might, she could not banish him from her thoughts. Her brow puckered as she considered the situation.

He had sent a gift to his niece Pauline to celebrate her first visit to the theatre, but nothing for Kate, not even a message to assuage her concerns. She would have been jealous but for her own fondness for the spritely dark creature. Kate admired Louisa, but Kate and Pauline were birds of a feather. They shared the same impish sense of humor and love of languages, especially street cant.

She could not understand what act or word had led to the peculiarity of mood which had swept over him. Had she had somehow displeased Quinn? It would be a very uncomfortable evening unless he’d recovered his usual sunny demeanor.

Her maid tossed the white crinkled silk gown over Kate’s head, then adjusted its blue velvet bodice.

The ruched silk set off Kate’s figure while the blue trim drew attention to her eyes. Kate wore matching blue slippers and, later, would don gloves. She sat still while Bettina arranged her hair into an artful chignon. Short crops were more fashionable, but Kate preferred her hair long. Bettina pinned blue velvet flowers into the chignon. The flowers matched those which trimmed the double flounce edging the dress at Kate’s ankles.

Dinner was elaborate, far beyond the light meal Anna blithely proposed. A tasty lobster bisque was followed by plaice, delicately bathed in lemon cream sauce. The fish course preceded squabs roasted with blackcurrant glaze, and the savory was accompanied by an assortment of tarts and syllabubs. Numerous removes, including a ham and a roast beef, sat on the buffet.

As delicious as dinner was, Kate found the emotional undercurrents present at the table more interesting than the food. While his heart might be engaged to another, Sir Willoughby’s manners left nothing to be desired. She was, for the first time, favorably impressed by Wicked Willy. That she now knew his sobriquet infused their conversation with rather more sparkle than the gentleman expected or desired. But he covered any discomfiture admirably, and even flirted a little. She was cheerfully diverted from her preoccupation with Quinn.

Because she had no designs on the baronet, she didn’t understand why Louisa glowered at them from down the table. During a lull in her conversation with Hawkes, Kate looked down the table at her hostess.

Lady Anna chatted with Quinn about the latest gossip. Next to her uncle, Pauline visibly reveled in her first adult party. Dressed in pink muslin with cream lace trim, she took unabashed pleasure in the occasion. Although he could not be diverted by a fourteen year-old, Kate knew that Bryan St. Wills possessed sufficient address to engage his young dinner partner in such conversation as would put her at ease.

Later, on the way to the theatre, Pauline amused Kate by flirting with her fan. The elegant trifle of silver sticks and pink silk had been sent to her by her uncle Devere for this occasion, her first trip to the theatre.

She hid her eyes behind the widespread fan, then batted them at her uncle, who sat opposite. He smiled, recognizing the silent message:
I love you.
His grin broadened as she closed her fan, and touched it to her left ear:
do not betray our secret.
Watching them, Kate’s lips twitched. Pauline’s eyes darted quickly from one to the other, and she tapped her fan to her lips.
Be quiet, we are overheard!
Both Quinn and Kate burst out laughing as the carriage drew up in front of the Drury Lane Theatre.

The great Kean, still popular, had drawn a crowd.

The pit was jammed with dandies and bucks of all description, many of whom turned their opera glasses on the ladies in the boxes, rather than on the stage.

The Tyndale family maintained a large box and Pauline, since this was her special treat, sat at the front. Bryan St. Wills, her escort, had a chair next to her. Anna placed Kate and Louisa in the front also, the better to keep her eye on her eldest daughter.

Anna kept Sir Willoughby close by her and entertained him with the latest
on dits
which she’d learned from Quinn at dinner.

The play began, entrancing Kate. While she was well educated, she’d never had the opportunity to attend the theatre in London. As she watched the witches on the heath, Katherine wondered if she could cast a spell to ensorcel Quinn. She sighed as she remembered the predictions of the gipsy, who had seemed so enlightened, were only fake and flummery.