Miss Darby's Duenna (8 page)

Her Grace’s eyebrows rose, her interest piqued. “Indeed? Sits the wind in that quarter?”

Lord Mannerly gave a snort of derisive laughter. “Acquit me, I beg you, of having designs on a chit barely out of the schoolroom! Actually, I find Miss Darby, the fiancée of the current baronet, of far greater interest.”

The duchess bent a frown of disapproval on her errant nephew.

“Selwyn, you would not make advances to a woman who is already spoken for!”

“Do you know me so little, Aunt? Of course I would!”

Her Grace gave a musical laugh. “I have always had a weakness for a rake, Selwyn. I suppose that is why I tolerate you.” Her smiles turned to frowns as a new thought struck her. “She is not a Long Meg, is she, this granddaughter? Lady Hawthorne was taller than is pleasing in a female, although where she got her height remains a mystery, for the Langfords are not much above the average.”

“No, no Long Meg. Now, what else can you tell me about Lady Hawthorne?”

The duchess shrugged her frail shoulders. “Not much, I’m afraid, except that she has resided in Bath for the last twenty years or more.”

“‘Resided’ being the operative word,” put in her nephew. “She has recently taken up residence in London—Curzon Street, to be exact.”

“Indeed? Well! Now I am the one being educated! Shall I call on her, do you think?”

Lord Mannerly hesitated. If there were anything havey-cavey about Lady Hawthorne, his aunt would be the one to spot it. “I should be eternally grateful if you would do so.”

The duchess raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“That,
Selwyn, I should like to see!”

* * * *

The morning sun rose high over the city of Bath, casting a golden hue over the local limestone which comprised its stately Georgian architecture. Although no longer the fashionable resort it had once been, the city still had a distinguished, if somewhat dated, air, not unlike the many elderly aristocrats who lingered there in fond recollection of their younger days. Numbered among these venerable denizens was the dowager Lady Hawthorne.  From her lodgings in Laura Place, this worthy gentlewoman frowned at the view which had greeted her virtually every morning for the past twenty years.

“Draw the curtains, Mildred,” she ordered her companion, a thin, colorless woman of indeterminate age. “The sunlight will fade the carpet.”

“Yes, my lady.”

Miss Mildred Hunnicutt scurried to do her employer’s bidding, grateful for the quirk of fate which had made her second cousin to a widow of wealth and position, and thus provided her with genteel employment and a roof over her head. Alas, fate was not often kind to spinster ladies, and Miss Hunnicutt had abandoned all matrimonial hopes many years earlier, when her sweetheart had married a young woman chosen by his family while the bridal couple were still in their respective cradles.

Having carried out Lady Hawthorne’s command, Miss Hunnicutt returned to the table where the dowager sat scanning the newspaper as she sipped her morning chocolate. Knowing that her ladyship detested interruptions, Miss Hunnicutt held her tongue as she buttered a slice of toast. As the silence lengthened, the companion thought longingly of the Gothic romance she had recently borrowed from the lending library and wished she might return to her room to fetch it.  But alas, Lady Hawthorne was no more fond of novels than she was of interruptions. In fact, as Miss Hunnicutt recalled, the last time she had seen her employee thus indulging, she had insisted on presenting her with an uplifting volume of sermons to read in its stead. Recalling this incident, the companion suppressed a sigh and contented herself with perusing the back of Lady Hawthorne’s newspaper.

While it made a poor substitute for the thrilling works of Mrs. Radcliffe, the page presenting itself to Miss Hunnicutt contained the society news from London, and so she passed the time in learning the latest doings of the
beau monde,
their identities thinly veiled by the lavish use of initials and abbreviations. She had spent several minutes thus agreeably occupied when one tidbit surprised a startled squeak from her lips.

“Well, Mildred?” demanded Lady Hawthorne impatiently, lowering her newspaper to frown at her errant employee. “I trust you will explain why you saw fit to interrupt this fascinating account of Lord Mablethorpe’s sojourn to America? I had just reached the part where his party was set upon by savages.”

“I beg your pardon, my lady,” Miss Hunnicutt twittered, “but I found this item most interesting. Tell me, is Sir Harry not betrothed to a Miss Darby?”

“Miss Darby, Miss Derwood, something like that. Although why any woman of sense would choose to marry my ramshackle grandson quite escapes me. Impudent young popinjay! Although I must confess, the lad is as handsome as he can stare,” she added with a glance toward the mantle, where a yellowed miniature revealed a curly-haired boy cradling a redheaded infant on his lap. “Indeed, I have often detected in his countenance a pronounced resemblance to myself.”

“I have often remarked upon it also, my lady,” replied Miss Hunnicutt dutifully, thankful to be spared a scolding.

“But that is neither here nor there,” continued Lady Hawthorne brusquely. “Why do you bring up my grandson now, when I was so enjoying reading of Lord Mablethorpe’s travels?”

“I beg your pardon, my lady, but I thought you might find this item of interest.” She reached for the dowager’s newspaper, then hesitated. “With your permission, of course.”

“Oh, very well,” agreed Lady Hawthorne with obvious reluctance.

Miss Hunnicutt turned the paper over and began to read aloud. ‘“The dowager Lady H. has recently returned to the Metropolis after a prolonged residence in Bath. Lady H., grandmother of Sir H. H., was seen at Covent Garden with her granddaughter Miss H., Lord M., and Miss
D., who is rumored to be betrothed to Sir H. Can it be wedding bells which have lured Lady H. out of seclusion?’ ” Lowering the newspaper, Miss Hunnicutt regarded her employer expectantly.

“What of it, Mildred?” asked Lady Hawthorne, unimpressed.

“Is it not extraordinary, my lady?  Why, it could have been describing you!”

“Indeed it could have, were it not for one minor detail: it says Lady H. has recently returned to London, and I, you will observe, am still very much in Bath.”

“Still, it is unusual, you must own,” persisted the companion.

“Nonsense!  Why, there must be any number of dowagers in London with the same initials, and I’ll wager most of them have grandsons. Now, unless you can find something worthwhile to say, kindly let me finish my article in peace.”

“Yes, my lady,” murmured Miss Hunnicutt, quite cowed.

* * * *

While in Bath Lady Hawthorne perused Lord Mablethorpe’s account of his American travels, readers of the London newspapers were made privy to the information that Lady Clairmont had presented her husband with a son and heir, and that both mother and child were doing well. These happy tidings (which had been delivered to Curzon Street by messenger on the evening after Mrs. Darby’s hasty departure) were gladly received by all who had known Mrs. Darby’s eldest daughter before her marriage to the viscount. The predictable result was a steady stream of morning callers to Curzon Street. Upon their arrival, the visitors discovered that the new grandmother had gone to assist at her daughter’s lying-in, and that Miss Hawthorne’s grandmother, recently of Bath, had taken on the role of duenna.

Happy as she was for her sister, the new aunt, Miss Darby, found her sudden celebrity something of a trial. She endured her visitors’ congratulations with a strained smile, but found it harder to answer with equanimity their coy suggestions that she would soon be the one marrying and setting up her nursery. For as plentiful as her callers were, the one she most wanted to see was conspicuously absent. Her heart leaped every time the door knocker sounded, only to plummet when the butler announced someone other than Sir Harry.

But, Olivia told herself, she did not care. If Harry did not wish for her company, there was another who did. Indeed, had it not been for Lord Mannerly, she did not know how she would have managed. The marquess was as attentive as Harry was neglectful, and his obvious admiration was a balm to her wounded pride. He had called in Curzon Street on the morning following the birth announcement, accompanied by his aunt, the duchess of Ramsey.

“I understand your sister has given birth to a boy,” said Lord Mannerly as he bowed over her hand. “Allow me to tell you that I have never seen a maiden aunt more lovely.”

“I’ll wager you say that to all the young ladies,” scolded Miss Darby playfully, her cheeks nevertheless turning pink with pleasure.

“Tell me, Miss Darby, what has Sir Harry to say to your sister’s happy news? I daresay he looks forward to the day when he can set up his own nursery.”

At the mention of her absentee bridegroom, Olivia lost her rosy glow. “I have seen little of Harry of late, my lord. He stays very busy, you see.”

“Perhaps his loss may be my gain. I realize I must be a poor substitute for the man you are promised to marry, but I should be honored to offer you my services as an escort. Do you like horses, Miss Darby? I have a fine pair of blacks which I exercise regularly in the park. I should be pleased if you would accompany me.”

“I should like that very much,” replied Olivia, her spirits lifting somewhat.

“I shall call for you at four,” promised the marquess, then rose to join his aunt.

The duchess of Ramsey, in the meantime, had been renewing her long-neglected acquaintance with Lady Hawthorne. Shortly after being reintroduced to the dowager, her Grace had been seized by the conviction that her nephew’s suspicions were well-founded, although she could not have said precisely what had drawn her to such a conclusion. Certainly Lady Hawthorne’s looks had altered greatly since the last time she had seen her, and yet the duchess was not so vain as to suppose the passing of twenty years had left her own visage untouched by Time.

Nor did Lady Hawthorne’s conversation provide any clues. The duchess asked several probing questions concerning the various members of Lady Hawthorne’s family, and she had been given an equal number of innocuous replies.   Still, she could not shake the conviction that something was not quite right.

The subject of Lady Hawthorne’s family led not unnaturally to a discussion of her home in Bath, and the numerous mutual acquaintances who had flocked to that once-fashionable spa to take the waters. Here the duchess found Lady Hawthorne less loquacious, and here she found the opening she sought.

“Tell me, Lady Hawthorne,” she said, pausing to take a sip of tea from her delicate Sevres cup, “do you ever see Lady Thurston-Whyte? I understand her physician advised her to take the cure last year.”

The dowager was in the process of selecting a seed cake from the tray, but at the duchess’s unexpected question, this confection crumbled in her fingers, raining crumbs onto her plate. “Lady Thurston-Whyte?” she echoed. “You must know, your Grace, that I do not get about as much as I did in my younger days. But now that you mention it, I believe I have occasionally encountered Lady Thurston-Whyte in the Pump Room.”

“Indeed?” was the duchess’s response.

In the next instant, Lord Mannerly came to collect his aunt, and the subject was dropped as the pair bid their hostess farewell.

Upon seeing Lord Mannerly vacate his post, Georgina claimed the marquess’s place beside Olivia on the sofa, from which vantage point she observed through narrowed eyes as he exchanged pleasantries with the
faux
Lady Hawthorne.

“Tell me, Olivia, what do you think of him?” Georgina asked.

“Lord Mannerly? I think he is quite the most charming man I have ever met.”

“There are some,” said Georgina with a show of indifference, “who consider Harry charming.”

“Oh, Harry is not lacking in charm, when he chooses to exercise it. But,” added Olivia, her magnificent eyes sparkling with mischief, “Harry is the sort of gentleman one marries. Lord Mannerly is the sort with whom one enjoys a shocking flirtation.”

Georgina lost no time in reporting this remark to her brother, after which she requested permission to inform the Reverend Mr. Collier of the birth of Mrs. Darby’s first grandchild. Permission being granted, Georgina tripped lightly from the room in search of writing paper, sent on her way with Sir Harry’s rather grimly expressed hope that his sister’s courtship would be more successful than his own.

Alas, but such was not the case. Georgina had no sooner dipped quill to inkwell than she discovered the good vicar’s face mysteriously erased from her memory. Oh, she well remembered his blue eyes, golden curls, and aristocratic brow. But when she tried to assemble these pleasing characteristics into a unified whole, the beloved countenance remained maddeningly elusive. Instead, the marquess’s black eyes and mocking smile swam before her as if permanently engraved on the pressed vellum. Georgina stared at this image for a long moment, until a drop of ink dripped from her quill, marring the crisp white writing paper with a large black blot. Georgina crumpled the ruined sheet into a ball and threw it into the grate.

* * * *

“Well, Aunt Augusta?” prompted the marquess as soon as they had quit Curzon Street.

“You are quite right, Selwyn,” pronounced the duchess. “I do not know who that woman is, but she is certainly not Lady Hawthorne—at least, not the Lady Hawthorne I knew.”

“Aha!”

The duchess gave a derisive snort. “The woman told me she occasionally met Lady Thurston-Whyte in the Pump Room! Of all the taradiddles!”

“I feel sure I shall regret asking, but what makes you so certain it was a taradiddle?”

“Look up Lord Thurston-Whyte in
Debrett’s,
my boy,” advised his aunt. “There is not, to my knowledge, any such peerage in all Britain.”

Chapter Seven

Oh, what a plague is love! How shall I bear it? She will inconstant prove, I greatly fear it.

ANONYMOUS,
Phillida Flouts Me

To Sir Harry, it seemed as if his life had become a nightmare from which he could not awaken. His morning had been spent doing the pretty to an endless stream of morning callers, all the while watching out of the corner of his eye as Olivia flirted with his nemesis in a manner which could only be described as brazen.  His evening promised to be no better, as he was committed to escort Olivia and Georgina to Vauxhall Gardens, where he would no doubt be forced to dance attendance on his sister while Lord Mannerly steered Olivia down various dark and secluded walks. For herein lay the fatal flaw in his ill-conceived plan: while he in his new persona could certainly keep Miss Darby under his watchful eye, the
faux
Lady Hawthorne could do nothing to further his own courtship. In assuming his disguise, Sir Harry had unwittingly given the marquess a clear field, having effectively removed himself as a rival.