Springtime Pleasures (7 page)

She had sparkled, had shone like a beacon of light in the darkness, calling to him in some way he could not explain.

But in the end, she was not for him.

He had a duty to perform. A guilt to assuage.

And so he would turn his back on her and find a girl more suited to become his viscountess.

Chapter 4

in which our heroine upholds

the spirit of St. Cuthbert’s

Miss Carlotta Stanton to Miss Emma-Louise Brockwin by Two-penny Post

My dear Emma-Lee,

I have had the most exciting evening & made a pleasant acquaintance, too. The Ball was as splendid as you can imagine, though the Room was
very
full—it was the most frightful crush! There were what seemed like
legions
of couples of Dancers. I spent the first half hour gaping until my Cousin complained to my Aunt that I looked like a fish or a dimwit. That was not very nicely done of her, was it?—I danced with a great many number of gentlemen & enjoyed myself immensely, but it seems they did not. I overheard 2 gentlemen later on & they remarked upon my figure in a rather disparaging manner. It appears your friend is not deemed a Beauty by the Beaux of Society. Yet my spirit was not crushed because I had made a most interesting acquaintance by then. Poor Lady Isabella sits in a
wheeling
chair & could not dance. She is dashingly nice & has invited me to a drive around the Park. I then saved her from having to drink a glass of lemonade as the ladies’ retiring room was on the first floor, which I call
very
discourteous.—Are there any rules I need to know about Invitations to Drives around the Park?

Yours affectionally, C.

~*~

Miss Emma-Louise Brockwin to Miss Carlotta Stanton by Two-penny Post, returned the same evening

Thank you for your message, dear Charlie. I have only a moment before the post goes out so please excuse the shortness of this note.—I should hope your first Ball was as splendid as you ever wished for & I also hope that you did not Damage the two disparaging gentlemen. This is NOT DONE in London and w’d cause the most frightful Scandal! (Even if they deserved it.)—I am most curious to hear more about your new acquaintance. I c’d not find out about any rules about Invitations to Drives around the Park, but I w’d deem it best that you w’d not mention things like Removing Bloodstains from Delicate Fabrics, the Correct Way of Gutting Fish, or the Incident on our way south. You must remember that Lady Isabella is a Delicately Reared Young Lady!

Yours very affectionally, E.-L. Brockwin

P.S. I understand that it is
Not Done
in Polite Society to address the groom on the box seat, except for giving him directions. So you better not ask him about the horses!

~*~

Gravel crunched under the wheels of the pretty landau as it rolled through Hyde Park on this sunny morning. Its two passengers had wrapped themselves in woollen pelisses and thick blankets so the two sides of the roof could be safely folded down in order to enable the young ladies to enjoy the feeble morning sunshine even at this most unfashionable early hour.

Charlie, of course, didn’t know that it was a most unfashionable hour. Indeed, if truth to be told, she had not yet fully grasped the concept of fashionable and unfashionable time. The only thing she was aware of was that it had been ridiculously easy to slip out of the house as her aunt and cousin were still in bed, and that the Park was, for once, gloriously empty.

No gazillions of people and horses milling around.

For somebody who had spent the majority of her life in a small Scottish village, the hordes of London became rather fatiguing after a while—not that Charlie would have ever admitted this even to herself. Instead, she ascribed her cheerful mood to the lovely weather, the crisp spring air, the prettiness of the carriage (and in tip-top shape it was, too!), and the very nice company. Lady Isabella, she found, was a thoroughly sweet girl, even if she was somewhat ignorant in regard to the mechanisms of the family’s landau and to questions like from where they got new wheels, whether the carriage had one of those new band brakes, and whether
that
was in any way effective.

Charlie suspected that the young groom on the box seat could have answered her questions. But Emma-Lee had impressed upon her that it would be vastly improper to address the groom, hence Charlie hadn’t, though she badly wanted to. The ins and outs of London society still remained a bit of a mystery to her, whereas Emma-Lee, who did not even go to balls and other such lofty things, seemed to have a much better grasp on them. Charlie wondered whether this had anything to do with the knitting. Knitting formed the mind in a different way than embroidery did. Thus, Charlie’s mind was inquisitive and sharply piercing.

At the moment it pierced the mystery surrounding Lady Isabella’s unfortunate affliction. “So you
can
walk, after all!” she said, eying the crutches that had been stuffed under Lady Isabella’s seat with interest. At the back of her mind she was somewhat guiltily aware that her aunt would have deemed such inquisitiveness highly improper. Apparently, gently bred ladies were not meant to ask questions. All they had to do was to smile prettily.

But then Charlie didn’t possess Emma-Lee’s dimples, and her smile was probably only adequate. Besides, Aunt Dolmore was not here to chastise her. And just look at what had happened due to Perceval’s lack of inquisitiveness! The poor Grail King had to suffer for many more months, when just the merest mention of his illness could have cured him! Over-polite behaviour was definitely misplaced in situations such as this one.

Lady Isabella blushed prettily. Charlie had to admit that she didn’t have much similarity with the Grail King and that her affliction probably could not be cured simply by talking about it. Yet surely it was the thought that counted, was it not?

“I can still walk… a little,” Lady Isabella said haltingly and lowered her head to stare at her intertwined hands on her lap.

Charlie squirmed a little on her seat. Perhaps her question had been too impertinent, after all. She had just taken a deep breath to apologise, when the other girl continued, “The bones in my legs have been… smashed. Most of them anyway. So even with the crutches there is much…” She licked her lips, then turned her head to stare at the trees where the first green had begun to show. “There is much pain. Most of the times.”

Something tugged at Charlie’s heart. Just imagine: not being able to walk, especially at a time like this, when the air was filled with the sweet smell of spring! Charlie leaned forward to lightly touch the other girl’s hand. “I’m so very sorry.”

Lady Isabella’s head swung around. “You mustn’t pity me, Miss Stanton,” she said quickly. “You see, I have thought about this quite often and I have come to the conclusion that I am, in fact, rather lucky.”

“Lucky?” Charlie’s brows rose.

“Certainly.” Lady Isabella nodded. “My family is rich. They can afford a wheeling chair, a carriage and a companion—all for me. But just think of those poor veterans you sometimes see in the streets. Many of them have lost limbs in the war, and many of them don’t have families who could support them, and thus they have ended up as beggars. So yes, I consider myself very lucky indeed,” she said firmly.

Charlie stared. “Well…” She cleared her throat, at a loss what to say.

Lady Isabella gave an embarrassed little laugh. “How strange it is to talk to you like this.” Her cheeks turned rosy. “As I said, I have thought about this quite often, but I have never talked to anybody about it.” A frown appeared between her brows. “Nobody has ever
asked
, you know.”

Charlie cleared her throat and self-consciously pushed her spectacles up her nose. “You must think me impertinent.”

“Oh no! Never that!” Now it was Lady Isabella’s turn to touch Charlie’s hand. “I find it—” She cocked her head to the side. “—refreshing. Yes, refreshing.”

Relief spread through Charlie, making her grin. Comparing the other girl to the Grail King hadn’t been so very stupid after all!

“You seem to be genuinely interested,” Lady Isabella continued. “Most people are only interested in the gory details, so they have something to prattle about—and to tell my brother how irresponsible he is.” She grimaced. “I hate that!”

“Your brother?” In front of Charlie’s inner eye rose the image of that stern-faced gentleman. Well, he hadn’t been quite so stern-faced when they had been dancing, had he? He had smelled very nice, too, and the touch of his hands… Merely
thinking
about his large hands made her stomach all aflutter.

Pea-goose!
Charlie scolded herself, and aloud, she asked, “Was he involved in the accident, then?”

“Not at all. But it was
his
phaeton. One of those impossibly high things you see the young gentlemen drive around Town. My other brother, my eldest brother, that is, wished to prove—goodness knows what exactly he wanted to prove to George. And to me. He invited me to drive with him, you know.”

“It sounds like a complicated situation,” Charlie said.

“Oh, in my experience male pride
always
complicates things.” Lady Isabella rolled her eyes. “And William had more than his fair share of it. I believe he resented the fact that George was the more athletic of the two. A better fencer, better with horses, and a better driver, too. William didn’t like it. After all, he was the elder. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?”

For a moment, the two girls sat in silence, shaking their heads at the general
strangeness
of men.

“In the village back at home, there was a young man—I don’t think you would call him a gentleman—there was a young man who believed he was more apt at dealing with wild boars,” Charlie offered. “He sprouted things like how God had created Man to deal with dangerous beasts and protect the women and children. I mean, really, have you read anywhere in the Bible that God ever said to Moses or Abraham or to any of the prophets, ‘Only thou shalt fight against the wild animals of the forest’? He was lucky the only part of his that the boar managed to rip open when he climbed up on that tree was his—” Charlie frowned and searched for a polite euphemism. “Well, that part of his body he usually sits upon. Not that he sat upon it much after that particular episode. Oh no, not for a long time!”

She became aware that Lady Isabella was staring at her in a most peculiar fashion, which made her wonder whether she had committed another
faux pas
and whether wild boars were deemed an unsuitable topic in London society. She hadn’t seen any wild boars since her arrival, so perhaps they were considered unworthy of being talked about. Which was entirely unfair when they presented such a problem in other parts of the country.

Nevertheless, Charlie decided it was wiser to turn the conversation back to the original topic. “So, your brother—George?—is a good driver?”

Lady Isabella blinked. “One of the best,” she said slowly and not without pride. “Have you heard of the Four-in-Hand club?—No? It is one of the dashier gentlemen’s clubs. George should have been a member; perhaps he would have become a member if…” Lady Isabella swallowed. “If it had not been for the accident.”

Lines of strain bracketed her mouth, and impulsively, Charlie once again reached out to touch her hand. “What happened?” she asked.

The other girl sniffed inelegantly. “One day George came to a family dinner—sometimes he does, even though he lives at the Albany…”

Charlie nodded, even though she had never heard of this Albany before. Was it a foreign country? But surely Lady Isabella couldn’t mean that her brother lived in a foreign country! Casually coming to dinner would be a rather awkward affair in that case!

“So he came to dinner that evening and couldn’t stop talking about that new phaeton he had bought. My father and William did not approve, of course,” Lady Isabella added with a sigh. “They thought George nothing but an idle buck around Town.”

What a mean-spirited thing, to take one’s father’s against one’s brother! Charlie didn’t think she liked the sound of this brother William.

“So George said that driving such a carriage was an art. At which William said that everybody could do it. I…” Lady Isabella frowned. “I think I must have giggled or have made some such other sound of amusement. In any case, it made William furious. He rounded on me, told me how disappointed he was that his only sister’s head could be turned by such trivial nonsense.”

That clinched the matter: Brother William, Charlie decided, had been a mean, knavish churl. Not just siding against his own brother, but being nasty to his sister, too! And a sweeter girl Charlie had rarely met.

“I believe it was at this point that he got up from the table and ordered a footman to have George’s phaeton brought around to the front entrance,” Lady Isabella said with a small shudder. “He and George exchanged words; my father tried to intervene and told William not to be a bigger fool than his brother. And William said the earl couldn’t expect his eldest-born to behave in a cowardly fashion. ‘Just think of Nelson,’ he said.”

The two girls exchanged glances.

Lady Isabella’s face looked white and peakish, which made Charlie’s heart clench in sympathy. Maybe she should send for a bottle of Mr Brown’s Fantasticular Formula. According to rumour, the apothecary of Ardochlan had invented the formula especially for Miss Pinkerton. Some of the girls at St. Cuthbert’s even believed that many, many years ago Mr Brown had had a
tendre
for Miss Pinkerton and that his Fantasticular Formula was his token of affection for her. It was given to girls whom Miss Pinkerton deemed too thin or too pale, and within a month it usually worked its magic and let roses bloom on pale cheeks. And if anybody could do with some roses on her cheeks, it was poor Lady Isabella.

Charlie raised her brows. “What has Nelson got to do with it? He steered ships, not horses.” Much to the delight of the St. Cuthbertians. Though eventually they had—en masse—decided that the study of navy lists provided much less entertainment than the re-enactment of the Battle of Trafalgar on the village pond. And in their version, Lord Nelson had won the battle
and
survived it!