Maggie MacKeever (10 page)

Lady Davenham was not noticeably impressed with this demonstration of her husband’s preoccupation with the affairs of his estates; she cast him an exasperated glance. In response to this indication that his wife was heeding him, his lordship brushed back a lock of hair which had fallen forward onto his handsome brow, and smiled. “In my opinion, one of the most important of all inventions was Jethro Tull’s seed drill, which was made up of parts of an organ, a wheel-barrow and a cider mill.”

“Vivien, we have guests.” Lady Davenham’s tone was tart.

How could Thea think he had failed to note that, to him, unpalatable fact? With an expression of faint distaste, Lord Davenham glanced around his drawing room. Guests notwithstanding, he continued to expand upon seed drills.

Recipient of these observations, Lady Davenham temporarily conceded defeat. At least with her rout, she had scored a marked success. This evening would be talked of for at least a week, and accorded that highest of accolades, a dreadful squeeze. Yet Thea was experiencing none of the elation due a successful hostess, for it was through no effort of hers that this
coup
had been accomplished. These members of the
ton
who thronged Davenant House this night could not care less that the wooden floor had been polished with beeswax and turpentine, and the Brussels carpet subjected to damp tea leaves, and the furniture shined with a mixture of small beer and sulphuric acid treacle and ivory black. Doubtless these fashionable guests would not notice were guano in truth scattered about the chamber. Curiosity about Sir Malcolm Calveley had brought the
beau monde
to Davenant House.

Their curiosity was being well satisfied, Thea reflected; Malcolm was in his element, entertaining his rapt audience with descriptions of his travels, irreverent tales of Paris and the denizens of the Palais Royale. “Malcolm seems to be enjoying himself,” she said aloud.

This remark had the effect of distracting Lord Davenham briefly from his preoccupation. “Malcolm always does enjoy himself,” Vivien responded, “even when he should not. Tell me, my dear, have you an opinion on the oxen-versus-horses controversy regarding the sowing of seed?” Thea did not answer. Under the impression that this lack of comment was result of ignorance, his lordship immediately set about repairing the gap in his wife’s education.

As perhaps need not be here explained, Lady Davenham had not the slightest interest in farming, yet she felt too self-conscious to leave Vivien’s side and mingle closer with their guests. No feelings of social inadequacy prompted this reaction, or sudden cessation of curiosity. It was all the fault of her dress. Thea glanced cautiously at her reflection in the gilt-framed glass set over the chimney shelf. Hastily, she looked away.

“My dear.” Once more Lord Davenham demonstrated his uncanny ability to observe what one least preferred. “Your face is flushed. Perhaps you would enjoy some fresh air.”

Was Vivien inviting her to stroll in the gardens, perhaps—Thea blushed deeper—even to engage in certain activities not enjoyed since prior to their departure from their country estates? Thea glanced shyly at her husband. How damnably attractive he was. Any woman must yearn to erase his distracted air. Stroll with Vivien in the gardens? The notion appealed very much, despite the fact that it was a damp, moonless, foggy night. Callously she abandoned her guests to their own amusements. “Oh, yes!” she said.

How animated Thea grew over his suggestion—
could
she want to stroll in the gardens? Vivien mused. He thought probably not. Now if it were Malcolm who issued the invitation—

Without further preamble, Lord Davenham threw open the window by which they stood. “Very well. You would be very interested in seeing the seed drill work, Thea, and you may read all about it in Tull’s
Horse-Hoeing Husbandry;
I will lend you the book.”

So much for romance. Disgruntled, Lady Davenham considered shoving her spouse through the opened window. Great pleasure was to be derived from thusly imagining him planted in his own flowerbeds. So much, too, for Madame le Best’s promise that Thea’s new gown would make gentlemen’s eyes start right out of their heads.

Madame’s promise had not pertained to Vivien, Thea recalled. She looked at her cousin Malcolm, currently responding irreverently to an
on-dit
that, following the opening of Parliament, the Prince Regent’s carriage window had been shot out. Did Malcolm take nothing seriously? she wondered. He caught her glance and smiled. Evening wear suited him, decided Thea. Malcolm looked very handsome in his frilled shirt and knee breeches and long-tailed coat. For that matter, so did Vivien. Fancy dress suited the Davenants—with the exception of herself.

It came to Lord Davenham’s notice that his companion was exhibiting no measurable excitement in response to his generously offered reading list. He concentrated on his wife.

Thea was unhappily studying her reflection in the chimney glass. As Vivien watched, she surreptitiously tugged up her low-cut neckline. And so she should! privately thought his lordship; or at least temper nature’s bounty with a discreetly arranged shawl. Not that his lordship had the least objection to said display, save that it made concentration on anything else deuced difficult. Gentlemen and scholar though he might be, Lord Davenham was also very much a Davenant. It was not ice water that coursed through his veins. “I wish you would stop fidgeting with your dress!” he therefore remarked. “It makes it deuced difficult to concentrate.”

“It does?” Slightly cheered by this intimation that her new gown was not entirely without effect, Thea awarded her reflection another doubtful glance. Assuredly she did not look dowdy, she decided. She was less certain that she did not resemble Haymarket-ware.

Her gown was fashioned of light delicate cream-colored silk gauze embroidered with flower sprays, worn over a satin slip of bluish-pink. The bodice was cut very low over the shoulders, the neck in a deep V;

the short sleeves were held up by a narrow satin band; the wide skirts were deeply flounced and trimmed with a profusion of open-work embroidery, in Vandykes and scallops, alternating with puffings and pipings and insertions. In itself, the gown was an admirable display of Madame le Best’s talents. On Lady Davenham, the gown became a showcase for bounty unequaled elsewhere in the room. Lord Davenham was not the only gentleman who had glanced with fascination upon Thea’s décolletage. Thea was unaware of this, of course. Thea’s awareness was blunted by her dissatisfaction with life in general, with herself, and especially with her dress.

With it she wore long gloves of white kid with ruching around the top, and round-toed evening shoes with rosettes. Her dark hair had been released from its severe braid to cascade in ringlets from the crown of her head to her neck. Set amid that profusion of curls was a pearl-studded bandeau. Around her neck was a string of perfectly matched pearls. “You have not answered me,” she complained, turning from the glass. Lord Davenham’s expression was contemplative. “And if you say one more word to me about seed plows, Vivien, I think I shall scream!”

Lord Davenham was too tactful to explain that his thoughts had fondly dwelt not upon seed plows, but instead his wife’s lush person. “As you wish, my dear. What would you like to talk about?”

As is the usual way with people asked this question, Lady Davenham’s response, was to look blank. “Tell me, Vivien,” she said after a long pause. “Do you like this gown?”

What Lord Davenham would have liked to do with his wife’s gown was immediately remove it, an impulse prompted by no consideration whatsoever of his responsibilities as head of the Davenant clan. “It’s very nice, my dear,” he diplomatically said.

Whatever adjectives might be applied to her gown, “nice” was not among them, decided Thea, who had turned away from the mirror only to be confronted by her reflection in the window glass. “Shocking,” perhaps; “indecent” or
“outré”—
but definitely not “nice.” “I mean, how do I
look?”
she asked.

“Oh, very fine!” Lord Davenham decided that even a clan so impervious to public opinion as the Davenants might be dismayed were its leader to comport himself like some prehistoric caveman. “You are a diamond of the first water, my dear, as I think I’ve said before.”

Husbands were legendarily indifferent to their wives’ attire, remembered Thea; but she fancied most husbands would have taken notice of
this
dress—would, in fact, have forbidden their wives to publicly wear such a gown. Thea half-wished she had been thusly browbeaten; without her corsets—indeed, with hardly any covering whatsoever on most of her upper body—she felt only half-dressed. If only Malcolm had not been so insistent! But he had made it very clear that if she did not wear the gown, he would not attend the rout. “I have the oddest suspicion that Malcolm is up to something,” she remarked. “He has grown so secretive.”

The cause of that furtiveness, thought Lord Davenham, was nothing more sinister than Malcolm’s determination to thwart Thea’s plans. But it was not Vivien’s habit to cut up his wife’s pleasure. “I would not tease myself about it,” he said vaguely. “Malcolm was always involved in some escapade.”

“Do not tease myself!” echoed Lady Davenham, indignant not because of her husband’s indifference to their cousin so much as by his lack of reaction to her dress. At the least she would have lilted to have a compliment, and even better would have been an invitation to rendezvous in the damp and misty garden—or elsewhere! “One may lead a horse to water,” she muttered.

Horses? Lord Davenham was delighted by his wife’s effort to introduce a topic of conversation less controversial than their dashing cousin, and her own bold gown. “I have an idea for a reaping machine to be pushed by a team of horses. . . .”

As Lady Davenham chafed her arms, she decided there was only one explanation for the lack of attention paid her by the masculine members of her family: she
had
become a dowd. Still, she didn’t think it necessary that she be constantly reminded of that unpleasant fact. “There is nothing to choose between you and Malcolm!” she remarked. “I am quite out of charity with you both.”

Why his wife might be out of charity with him, his lordship understood; he imagined she’d caught him showing more interest than was seemly in the charms displayed by her gown. Considering his wife’s strict adherence to propriety, and her excessive modesty, it was miraculous that she’d worn such a gown at all. But why this annoyance with Malcolm? Had he dared similarly presume? Was this unusual gown result of his return? Despite his resolution to let Thea work out her own fate, speculation upon Malcolm’s influence left Lord Davenham feeling somewhat uncharitable. “That would be very bad,” he said.

“What
would be very bad?” inquired Thea, who had grown very melancholy as result of thinking she was an antidote. “It is very difficult to have a conversation with someone who does not pay attention!”

“I
am
paying attention!” responded his lordship; was he not consequently feeling very cross? “As I attended to James. You remember James? I encountered him recently at a meeting of the Royal Institution of London—I
did
tell you, did I not, about the nature and propagation of light?”

If Lord Davenham’s interest in propagation might be concentrated closer to home, mused his unhappy lady, the dukedom might not lack an heir. “Several times; I beg you will not repeat the lecture to me again. What has the Royal Institution to do with our cousin, pray?”

“Not the Institution, James. And you accuse me of not paying attention!” As he pondered this inequity, his lordship took snuff. “As is the way with things one would much rather not hear about, they’re not easily forgotten once one
has.
Why
did
Malcolm leave England? Do you recall?”

“I do not think I ever knew.” Lady Davenham wished she might chafe her chest as well as her arms; ladies clad in next to nothing should not stand next to open windows lest they succumb to terminal gooseflesh. “It was something to do with a woman, I thought.”

“My dear, it always has to do with women, in Malcolm’s case.” Vivien’s voice was amused.

Somewhat unfairly, Lady Davenham decided that her husband found her a figure of fun. She also decided that she did not appreciate his amusement at her expense. “Have you grown so bored with your reapers and threshers that you must now meddle in woman’s work?” she inquired acerbically. “I am very used to manage for myself, you know. I do not require any assistance in getting Malcolm settled respectably. Look at him! As I predicted, he is the darling of the
ton.
Soon he will have the
entrée
everywhere.” Thea thought of the Lady Patronesses of Almack’s Assembly Rooms, who were unanimously starched-up. “Or almost!”

Although Lord Davenham’s mood was hardly improved by the alacrity with which his wife leaped to their cousin’s defense, he was far too well bred to succumb to his churlish impulse to turn Thea over his knee. “You must do as you think best,” he responded vaguely.

“Thank you!” muttered Lady Davenham ungraciously. “I shall.” With this exchange of amenities, conversation between them lapsed. Belatedly recalling her responsibilities as hostess, Thea looked around the drawing room. Some commotion appeared to be centered at the doorway. Even as Thea glanced in that direction, she heard a distant snarl.

A snarl? Surely Vivien’s ill-tempered hound could not have escaped his chamber? Thea’s faint hope was abruptly dashed as the throng prudently parted to let the hound pass. Dangling from the beast’s mouth was a fragment of fashionable blue stockinet, which had until recently formed the pantaloons of a gentleman guest. Lady Davenham wished very hard that she might become invisible.

Lord Davenham was not moved by such petty considerations. His guests could be no more distressed by Nimrod’s presence than his lordship was by theirs. Indeed, the wide swath which the dog cut through the drawing room put Vivien very strongly in mind of Moses parting the Red Sea. Serenely ignoring the indignant whispers attendant upon the arthritic hound’s passage, Lord Davenham made encouraging remarks. At length Nimrod arrived, wheezing, at his lordship’s feet. He collapsed upon Vivien’s highly varnished shoes, and sneezed. Concerned, Vivien immediately closed the window.