Sally James (2 page)

* * * *

Partly convinced and reassured by this explanation, Sir Roderick was for storming round to the Norton house immediately, but Isabella endeavoured to dissuade him, pointing out he could only create an unnecessary scandal. Lord Fordington, fully aware he should be discreet and offer to take his leave, was enjoying himself too hugely to wish to escape.

Recalling the difficulty he had had in escorting Sir Roderick home, he found a malicious pleasure in the baronet's dismay at the discovery of his daughter's prank. The reactions of the servants he also found entertaining. Baxter, presumably the butler, was endeavouring to press a glass of brandy into an unusually unresponsive Sir Roderick's hand. The other man, a small, spindle-legged creature, was creeping about on tiptoe anxiously retrieving the hat, gloves and cane Sir Roderick had let fall to the floor when he had himself been precipitated into the house, and clucking distractedly as he attempted to brush the hat with the sleeve of his nightshirt. Hands folded over her ample form, Mrs Frensham, with a chorus of twittering maids peering over her shoulders, smiled grimly at the consternation her words had produced.

It was Isabella who kept him there most of all though. No other girl he knew would have been so unconcerned about her own unconventional appearance in the middle of the night and in front of a stranger. Instead of falling into hysterics, as his stepmother would undoubtedly have done, she was calmly thinking out the possibilities, driving the giggling maids and Mrs Frensham upstairs and restraining Sir Roderick's wilder flights of fancy while she did so, in a cool and competent manner which aroused the former soldier's respect.

It was just as Isabella had calmed Sir Roderick sufficiently to persuade him to enter the study and sit down, while Saddler crept away with the discarded clothes and Baxter discreetly effaced himself, that an interruption occurred. The front door was pushed open cautiously, and framed in the doorway, her hands to her throat, was the loveliest vision Lord Fordington had ever beheld.

* * * *

She was of medium height, slightly built and fragile as Dresden china, with a pale, perfect complexion, flushed now a delicate pink as she gazed with enormous round blue eyes at the scene in the hall. Honey gold curls, short and feathery, clustered round her head, and a delectable lower lip was caught between small, even, pearly teeth.

'Oh!' she gasped in a frightened, trembling voice. 'I didn't – that is–'

'Georgiana!' Sir Roderick and Isabella exclaimed in unison.

'Where have you been?' Isabella demanded.

'Who is this?' Sir Roderick barked, and Lord Fordington dragged his gaze away from the enchanting damsel and saw behind her a young, obviously nervous, gangling youth dressed in pantaloons of an unfortunate shade of yellow which clashed with the pink-and-cream striped waistcoat, a coat cut with more care for a fashionable outline than the slender form of its wearer, and a once well starched but now wilting cravat drooping forlornly from the over-high points with which the wearer had commenced the evening.

'Sir!' the youth exclaimed, and snapped to attention, then flinched nervously as Sir Roderick, shaking off Isabella's hand from his arm, bore down upon the guilty pair.

'Who are you? What are you doing with my daughter?' he demanded fiercely, shaking his fist under the young man's nose.

To his credit the young man stood his ground, although he gulped and instinctively raised his arm to ward off the expected blow.

'S-Sir! My name is Reece, Sir! Clement Reece!' he stammered, apparently unable to take his eyes off the menacing fist a couple of inches from his nose.

'Reece? Reece? Who the devil is that? Never heard of you, sir! Damned upstart!'

'He is not! Mr Reece is an officer!' Georgiana declared, emboldened at the injustice of this, and stepped forward a pace, letting fall the domino she had been clutching about her.

It was a mistake to draw attention to herself. Sir Roderick, furious though he was, still retained some instincts of the correct behaviour of a host and had reluctantly restrained himself from attacking the young man within his house, but he had no qualms about venting his wrath upon his daughter. He turned on her so swiftly that she gasped and backed closer to her escort, who was thereby presented with the uncomfortable dilemma of placing himself between the beauty in distress and her outraged parent, or ignominiously leaving her to her fate.

'Where the devil did you buy that gown?' Sir Roderick demanded as his eyes fell upon his erring child, and his attention was distracted from her companion. 'It's downright indecent!'

Lord Fordington, no mean connoisseur of female raiment, studied the gown in question. Undoubtedly the low decolletage, and the thin sheer material which clung to her limbs in a fashion that made it obvious it had been dampened, revealed more of her maidenly charms than a prudent parent could have been expected to approve.

Georgiana blushed but flung back her head defiantly.

'It is not! It is all the rage! Everyone wears gowns like this and if you think this one is indecent you should have seen some of the others! Besides, I wore my domino all evening!'

Lord Fordington stifled a grin. Whether Georgiana was aware of it or not, it was by no means as startling a creation as those worn by the charmers the Regent and his cronies entertained, but he was well aware that what men approved of in their mistresses they frowned on in females of their own family.

Before the enraged baronet could utter further condemnation Isabella stepped forward, calmly wrapped the discarded domino about Georgiana and tried to draw her towards the stairs.

'If you wore your domino there was scarcely any point in going to such extremes,' she said calmly. 'It is rather too old a style for a girl not yet out.'

'That's not my fault! I'm old enough to
be
out. In any event, it was the only one we could find!'

'Where did you obtain it, and where have you been in it?' Sir Roderick, having recovered his breath, thundered.

Georgiana turned to him, but Lord Fordington noted how she moved closer into the shelter of Isabella's protective arm.

'Belinda. She lent it to me, it belongs to her sister!'

'That hoyden! She is encouraging you in this wickedness is she? Well, my girl, you'll see no more of her! I'll take care of that, you can be sure!'

'You cannot stop me for ever from doing what I choose!' Georgiana flung at her father, tossing her head defiantly and resisting Isabella's attempt to take her upstairs. 'You have refused to permit me to make my come-out this season, although I am scarce two months younger than Belinda, but you cannot imprison me for ever!'

'Pray do not be so foolish!' Isabella interposed, but her words were drowned in the roar from Sir Roderick.

'Imprison! You'd be better for a spell of confinement, Miss, aye, and a sound beating!'

'Sir!'

It was the young man, summoning up the courage to intervene when it appeared that Sir Roderick intended to carry out his threat immediately. The baronet swung round, suddenly made aware of him again.

'You! Who the devil are you, sir! What have you been doing, stealing my daughter out of her house?'

'C-Clement Reece, sir. I must p-protest. I did not steal your daughter. She-she did me the honour to permit me to escort her to the P-Pantheon. They have masked balls there,' he explained kindly as Sir Roderick, rendered momentarily speechless, stared disbelievingly at him.

'The Pantheon! The hurly-burly place, amongst all the riffraff in town?' Sir Roderick exclaimed, and turned wrathfully towards his erring child. 'Have you no more sense than to let yourself be seen at such a place? You'll not have a shred of reputation left!'

'I'll do as I please when I'm married, you'll not stop me then!' Georgiana declared.

'Married? You'll not marry this young puppy! Who the devil is he, anyway? Where did you meet him?'

Georgiana and the embarrassed young man blushed and did their best to avoid one another's eyes.

'No-no such intention, I do assure you, sir! That is, I d-don't want to offend Miss Sharman, to be sure, but the thing is, you see, we've only just met, and I-I'm still under age!'

'We met at Belinda's, Clement is a sort of cousin of hers,' Georgiana said hurriedly.

'I doubt if any harm has been done, Cousin,' Isabella's cool tones cut across the incoherent mutterings Sir Roderick had been reduced to. 'After all no one who knows Georgiana was likely to have been there, and she was masked, and even the gown would not have been seen under the domino. I suggest we all retire to bed and discuss this when we have slept. Come, Georgiana.'

'You'd be wise to disappear too,' Lord Fordington said in a soft voice to young Mr Reece.

'I will not run away!' was the indignant reply.

'Wellington was an adept at the art of judicious retreat and saving his attacks for the proper moment,' Lord Fordington remarked. 'Come back in the morning – late in the morning, I would advise – and offer an apology and explanation then. You'll only make it worse for the girl if you insist on arguing now! Go on, you young idiot, her father won't kill her! She's well enough protected, better than she would be by you!'

Mr Reece, vaguely conscious that he was cutting no heroic figure, reluctantly permitted himself to be pushed out of the door. Lord Fordington, most reprehensibly, shut it to behind him and turned to listen to the tirade of abuse Sir Roderick was heaping indiscriminately on the heads of his daughter and her absent friend.

'You are neither of you fit to be trusted!' he concluded.

'It would not have happened if you had not broken your promise to allow me to be presented this year!'

'I made no such promise!'

'You did.'

'You know full well, Georgiana, your father merely said he would consider it. I'm inclined to agree with him, you are both silly children!'

'Isabella, it was as good as a promise! And Belinda is no child, she has had
three
offers already. Just think, three!'

'If you think such an indiscriminate collection demonstrates Belinda's maturity, it merely shows your own lack of it! She has been sought since her grandmother died and left her a fortune, and not so long ago she would have been betrothed before she was out of the cradle!' Isabella said with a slight laugh. 'Come, my dear, you must be tired. Bid your father goodnight and I'll take you up to your bed.'

'And in the morning you can take her down to Woodings,' Sir Roderick snapped. 'I'll order the chaise for ten. Be sure you are both packed and ready to leave before then!'

'That is impossible,' Isabella said calmly. 'I still have not executed all the commissions Fanny gave me. I have to visit several shops tomorrow, and there are more clothes to be delivered which she wishes me to take down when we return. I cannot leave tomorrow and probably not the next day either.'

Sir Roderick fumed impotently, but was forced to concede the point, and had to be satisfied with shouting after his daughter as she finally permitted Isabella to guide her up the stairs that she need not think to be gallivanting about town again, for she would be confined to her room until the time came to depart.

It was only then, as he turned to stalk into his study, that he became aware of Lord Fordington's continued presence. He looked puzzled for a moment, and then laughed uncertainly.

'Women!' he exclaimed in disgust. 'I do beg your pardon, my lord. Wouldn't for the world have inflicted that on you if I could have avoided it. I always say Prinny had more trouble with his women than ever he had with Parliament! But let us have that brandy, I could do with it!'

'Pray do not regard me,' Lord Fordington said soothingly. 'And if I may take a quick look at your maps, Sir Roderick, I will then leave you in peace.'

Chapter Two

It was a considerable time later before Lord Fordington was able to excuse himself from the maudlin reminiscences of his host. Sir Roderick, stimulated by the rare occurrence of a new audience, indulged himself in melancholy wallowing, bewailing the fact that the frail health of his wife left him alone to guide his children.

'You have a son also, I understand?' Lord Fordington commented.

'Silly young chub! Full of as many nonsensical notions as Georgiana! Expect it in a female! Thought Oxford would have knocked it out of him but he's as nonsensical as ever. Thank goodness he don't inherit his godmother's legacy for another two years or lord knows what follies he'd commit!'

Lord Fordington thought of the follies committed by his own brother and nodded ruefully.

'As if he could marry and set up house at twenty-five, with but a few hundred a year! He'll have to take some office, and yet the damned fool won't hear of letting Prinny use his influence! And now Georgiana is kicking over the traces! But she's too pretty to be left unguarded, my lord!'

'Pretty? She's beautiful!' Lord Fordington enthused, smiling as he recalled the sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks of the angry young girl defying her father.

'Just like her mother was at her age,' Sir Roderick confided. 'Pretty as a picture, my Fanny. Bowled me over, first time I set eyes on her, and I married her three months later. Practically no fortune, too,' he recalled, and Lord Fordington thought he detected a note of complaint. 'I'd have been more calculating today,' Sir Roderick chuckled suddenly, 'but I've no regrets, none whatsoever. Good family, naturally. And sweet disposition, has Fanny. The gal has too, my lord, despite what you saw tonight. Besides, she'll have a respectable jointure, unlike Fanny. My mother left it in trust for her.'

Or else you would have gamed it all away, Lord Fordington surmised, and was reminded of the reason for his presence. Sir Roderick was not easily tempted away from the subject of his family, but by calm insistence Lord Fordington persuaded him to take out the maps he had come to see. Sir Roderick, interspersing his excuses for selling his land with alternating complaints about his offspring and praise of Georgiana's looks, was forced to pay attention to the business in hand.