Somerville Farce (14 page)

Her jaw hardened. Harry had intended this
slight. He had seen her and then purposely ignored her altered
appearance. She knew it. She could feel it deep in every fiber of
her being. Duke or no, Harry Townsend was a man, and he was acting
just like a man—nasty! If she felt no
tendre
for him, she
doubted she could be this angry with him. But she did feel
something for him, and he knew it, drat him!

She had, as she saw it, two choices open to
her at this point in time. One, she could launch herself at him,
scratch his adorable grinning face, and then stomp out of the
mansion—and straight into penniless oblivion. Or, two, she could
stand her ground, swallow her pride, and bide her time until she,
the woman who cared for him, found a way to make the Duke of
Glynde’s life a miserable, never-ending hell!

Trixy was silent for some time, long moments
during which Glynde’s lamentably easy-to-read eyes looked
unwaveringly into her own. His entire expression was one of
amusement, liberally laced with masculine condescension and
something else that Trixy could only interpret as relief.

A slight quivering of his lips, as if he
were holding back a laugh, sealed his fate.

Slowly and quite distinctly, Trixy said at
last, “Please forgive my impertinence, your grace. I am, after all,
only an employee, and a temporary employee at that. Of course you
are not obliged to inform me of your comings and goings. Your
instructions have been carried out to the letter, your grace, by
the way—save for one small problem. Because you are bringing out
twins, we have no idea how to start off the ball, as you cannot
possibly lead both Helena and Eugenie into the first set of dances.
I will say that Helena has become much the better dancer, spending
long hours receiving extra instruction from the teacher you ordered
provided, but that is not really a good answer, is it? Perhaps you
have a suggestion?”

As Trixy spoke, any hint of humor left
Glynde’s face, to be replaced by a look of confused consternation
that had her toes curling in delight. Her aching heart eased. He
did have some affection for her. He had to. Otherwise he wouldn’t
care one way or the other how his words, his slights, affected
her.

She would be magnanimous. She would, for the
moment, let bygones be bygones, banishing the memory of their last
awkward meeting in favor of planning for the future.

Trixy had, at the outset, thought only to
make Lady Amelia believe Harry was interested in her—her single
intention being to get a little of her own back for his insulting
remark about finding herself a widower with a large brood to wed.
Now the entire complexion of the matter had changed. She had
changed. His kiss had changed her. Now she would settle for nothing
less than his love.

“Harry?” she inquired, tilting her head to
one side because he hadn’t answered her question. “Carriages are
beginning to arrive in the square, and we must make our way to the
ballroom. Do you have a solution to our problem or not?”

“What, ho, Harry?” came a bellow from the
stairs. “And who could this ravishing creature be, I ask? Never
tell me she is one of the twins, for you promised me they were
blond angels. This one looks more earthly than heaven-sent, but
gorgeous nonetheless. Introduce me, man, so that I might kiss that
dainty hand.”

Trixy looked toward the staircase to see a
tall, dark-haired, bearded gentleman lightly ascending to join
them. Beards were not really in vogue, Trixy knew, and most
probably hadn’t been since the days of Sir Walter Raleigh, but she
could readily see why the gentleman had adopted the affectation. He
looked mysterious and somehow dashing, although she would privately
wager that the thing had to be dreadfully uncomfortable in the
summertime.

“Trixy,” Harry said as the gentleman stopped
in front of her, eyeing her, or so she thought, as if she were the
prize in some raffle, “please allow me to introduce to you Sir
Roderick Hilliard. Roddy, make your bow to Miss Stourbridge,
companion to Misses Eugenie and Helena Somerville.”

“Madam, your most devoted servant,” Sir
Roderick announced, placing a kiss on the back of her hand, the
slight scrape of his beard forcing her to suppress the urge to rub
at her skin to banish the tickling sensation it had caused.

Sir Roderick turned to Glynde. “Harry, old
man, for shame. You’ve been holding out on us. Simpering little
misses, indeed. I’ll leave them to you and Salty, and take Miss
Stourbridge, if you don’t mind. I always was partial to redheads.”
He turned back to Trixy. “M’mother was a redhead, you know. Lovely,
sainted woman. Dead now, of course. I miss her terribly.”

“Roddy,” Harry interrupted, an edge to his
voice that delighted Trixy, “leave off, won’t you, before you have
me blubbering and Miss Stourbridge succumbing to sympathy over your
loss. Your sainted mother’s been dead for well over twenty years.
Besides, I’ve seen her portrait. Her hair was as black as a
crow’s.”

Sir Roderick gave a dismissive wave of his
hand. “Details, my boy. Merely details. She always seemed like a
redhead—fiery, you know. Are you fiery, Miss Stourbridge?”

“What I am, Sir Roderick,” Trixy responded
with a smile, “is in a terrible rush—as you should be, Harry. Pinch
can’t hold back the descending hordes forever, you know, and we
cannot leave Lady Amelia alone to greet your guests.” So saying,
she dropped a small curtsy in the gentlemen’s general direction and
headed for the ballroom.

Harry caught up with her in less than a
moment. “I’ve decided what we will do about the first dance,” he
said, grabbing Sir Roderick’s arm so that the man was dragged along
with them whether he liked it or not. “Roddy here will lead out
Helena, and Salty—another gentleman I’ve brought with me— can
squire Eugenie.”

Trixy turned her head to eye the duke
warily. “And just where will you be, Harry, while your friends
stand in for you? Propping up some pillar? And just who, pray tell,
is this Salty person? With a name like that, he might not be
acceptable to your aunt.”

“Grover Saltaire is his given name,” Sir
Roderick informed her, neatly slipping her left hand around his
elbow as they mounted the staircase to the ballroom. “He’s the best
of all good fellows— although, come to think of it, I don’t
remember him as much of a prancer. Maybe you should rethink the
thing, Harry—considering Miss Eugenie’s toes.”

In the end, the duke’s original plan was
adopted, thanks both to his adamant refusal to do more than
formally introduce the Somerville girls as the guests passed
through the receiving line and to Grover Saltaire’s eager
acceptance of the arrangement once he had clapped eyes on the
beauteous Eugenie.

Two hours later, and the ball, the first
given at the Glynde mansion in over a decade, was already a rousing
success, thanks mostly to Lady Amelia’s lavish use of pink bunting
and orchids in a decorating scheme to rival those of Prinny
himself. The orchestra was in top form, and the guests, as it was
early in the Season and they had not yet had a chance to acquire
the necessary
ennui
usually so visible at
ton
affairs, crowded the floor for every set.

Trixy, who had not yet danced—and did not
expect to dance, although she certainly might have hoped to take
the floor at least once—stood to one side of the ballroom, keeping
her eyes on Helena, who seemed rather downcast even though she had
not lacked for partners the entire evening.

Eugenie, on the other hand, was very
animated, laughing and talking and generally appearing as if she
had been born to be the center of attention—which both she and her
sister appeared to be, as their dance cards had filled almost
before the end of the first set.

Grover Saltaire seemed a splendid choice for
Eugenie, as the two physically perfect blonds made a striking
couple as they went down the dance—and Trixy had been forced to
scratch the man’s name out twice on Eugenie’s dance card or else
the whole town would have them betrothed by morning. As it was,
Eugenie was engaged to go down to supper with the man.

Trixy frowned, dismissing Eugenie from her
mind and looking over the crowd once more to seek out Helena. She
located the girl easily enough, dancing with an older gentleman who
was showing all the signs of making a regular cake of himself,
trying to keep up with the steps of an energetic Scottish reel.
Trixy hid a smile behind her gloved hand as the man tripped on his
sash and nearly tumbled to the floor, but her smile faded as Helena
stopped dead, heaved her slim shoulders in a mighty sigh, and then
continued on gracefully, her own smile small and wan.

“Not dancing, Miss Stourbridge? Surely it
can’t be because of any lack of offers.”

Trixy gave Helena one last look, then turned
to see Sir Roderick standing beside her. “I am only a companion,
Sir Roderick,” she pointed out, determinedly stilling her left
foot, which had been tapping in time to the music, “and am not
expected to dance. As a matter of fact, I am most probably breaking
some unwritten law by standing here, and should be sitting primly
alongside all those turbaned dowagers over there who are enjoying
themselves mightily by verbally tearing apart the reputation of
everyone else in the place.”

“Nonsense,” Sir Roderick said, placing a
hand on her elbow and guiding her out onto the floor. “I have
performed all my duty dances and I demand a reward in the form of a
turn around this great barn with the most beautiful woman in the
room. It’s only fair, seeing as how I helped you and Harry out by
squiring that die-away Helena Somerville twice. Is the child
sickening for something, do you think? I never met such a maudlin
miss.”

Her concern for Helena overpowering her
reluctance to put herself on show when she knew very well that
Harry would have something nasty and cutting to say about it later,
Trixy automatically moved into the steps of the dance, asking, “So
you saw it too? What do you suppose could be the problem? Helena is
usually quite cheerful. Perhaps I should go to her.”

“Leaving me behind, devastated, my heart
shattered? I should think not, Miss Stourbridge. Besides, we are in
the middle of a dance. You can hardly haul the child off the floor,
demanding to know why she isn’t grinning, now, can you?”

Trixy smiled up at the man, liking his beard
more each time she saw it. “A broken heart, Sir Roderick? Over me?
Why, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were flirting with
me.”

The movement of the dance brought them close
together. “I do know better, Miss Stourbridge, and I do believe I
am flirting with you. Tell me, would you like to go driving with me
in the park tomorrow afternoon? I have a new phaeton I’m longing to
try out in the promenade. My new geldings come from Tatt’s, so you
know they are supreme.”

Trixy hesitated, knowing that she could
never picture Sir Roderick as anything more than a friend. But just
then the sound of a trilling laugh reached her ears and she turned
to see Glynde engaged in lighthearted banter with a glorious
brunette whose gown left few of her charms to the imagination. “I’d
love to take a ride in the park, Sir Roderick,” she said,
deliberately batting her eyelashes at the man. “As a matter of
fact, I can think of nothing I should enjoy more.”

I
t had nearly gone
four in the morning before the last of the guests staggered out
onto the flagway and Trixy could shoo the girls upstairs to bed,
Eugenie chattering nineteen to the dozen about the handsome,
charming Grover Saltaire and Helena still strangely subdued.

Lady Amelia, still fanning herself with a
huge ostrich-plume fan that had suffered a prodigious workout
throughout the length of the evening, announced that “we are a
brilliant success” as she, too, climbed the staircase, Pinch at her
elbow to assist her in the ascent.

Andy, who had spent most of the evening
standing about in the card room, watching as Lord Halsey dropped
more than five hundred pounds without a blink, was explaining the
fine points of some card game to Willie as the two followed in Lady
Amelia’s wake, Willie, like Helena, uncharacteristically
subdued.

Harry, Trixy noticed as she lingered in the
black-and-white-tile foyer, was nowhere to be seen.

She wandered back into the ballroom to send
the yawning servants to bed, telling them they could finish their
work in the morning, and then went about snuffing candles that were
threatening to sputter out by themselves.

It was strange how forlorn the ballroom
looked to her now, devoid of people. The pink bunting, which had
seemed so romantic only a few hours earlier, now just looked tired,
and seemed to sag in all the wrong places. The flowers had already
begun to wilt, and the rows of empty chairs, once arranged so
precisely, looked like the broken lines of weary soldiers hastily
reassembled after a fierce battle.