The Golden Season (20 page)

Lydia flushed, allowing Eleanor to draw her into the crush. The crowd parted as if they were royalty, then closed behind them. At a deliberate pace, Eleanor led the way, pausing here to return a greeting or there to exchange a few words, nodding at an acquaintance and smiling at another, and thus forcing Lydia to do likewise. Introductions were made and news exchanged. Gentlemen requested dances and ladies whispered the latest
on dit
. Admiring glances tracked their progress and hushed words of appreciation heralded their steps.

But Lydia soon grew impatient to return to the front rooms, where Ned would be looking for her. Finally, when the crowds had thinned, Eleanor murmured into her ear, “Stop dragging on my arm like a horse with the bit in its mouth.
He is not here, Lydia
.”

Lydia did not pretend to misunderstand. “He was invited.”

“Then he has either been detained or he has decided not to come and do not
dare
ask Lord or Lady Young if they expect him or whether they have heard from him.”

“I would
never
be so forward,” she proclaimed in an injured voice.

“I wouldn’t have thought so, but really, Lydia, you are acting most unlike yourself of late. I swear you are greener this day than you were when you made your bow almost eight years ago,” Eleanor replied. “I will not tolerate two of my friends making cakes of themselves, at least not at the same time.”

Two
? Lydia abruptly stopped. “What do you mean?”

Eleanor glanced around, circumspectly looking for eavesdroppers. Satisfied there were none, but well aware that interested eyes never strayed far from Lydia, she pinned a smile on her face. Only Lydia saw the strain in it. “Sarah. She is with Carvelli.”

Prince Carvelli was Sarah’s latest in a long list of admirers. Sometimes her flirtations turned into brief affairs, but they only lasted a short while. Lydia was not surprised to hear Sarah was showing off her latest conquest. She was, however, surprised by Eleanor’s taut voice.

“She has already had three dances with him and now she has gone in to dine at his side. She is openly affectionate, so much so that their intimacy is bound to invite censure.”

“I will speak to her,” Lydia said.

“It will do no good. She seems intent on destroying herself.”

“I doubt that. Sarah might like to poke and prod at the line, but she has never shown any inclination to step over it,” Lydia said soothingly.

“My dear,” Eleanor said, “you would be the last to notice the changes in Sarah, being consumed as you are with your own affairs. Which, of course, you ought to be and, indeed, must be.”

Eleanor’s assessment caught Lydia off guard. True, Ned Lockton occupied her thoughts, but surely not to the extent that she had become oblivious to her friends. . . .
Where is Ned
? She looked around again, craning her neck, but did not see his dark gold head. Had he met with some misfortune? Had something, or someone, else demanded his time? What?
Who
?

“Lydia?”

“Yes?”

“Lydia, are you attending me at all?” Eleanor asked, exasperated.

Childe Smyth strolled up just in time to save Lydia from lying. He’d perfected the expression of the dandy, part boredom and all sardonic amusement. His brows canted up at the bridge of his nose and his lips curled in an attitude that might become a smile but might just as easily be a snicker. “Your Grace. Lady Lydia,” he drawled, essaying an elegant bow. “Faith! You have saved my life, m’dears.”

“Really? In what way, Mr. Smyth?” Eleanor asked.

“I was about to succumb through sheer ennui. No one has anything to say. I swear all wit and drama sailed off with Byron and Brummell. The 1816 Season shall be remembered as a singularly boring one. Though”—he tapped his nose, his eyes shining—“your good friend, the delightful Mrs. Marchland, seems determined to provide relief, God bless her.”

“How so, Mr. Smyth?” Eleanor asked in her most quelling tone.

Lydia knew her friend did not like Childe Smyth. She thought him puffed up and self-congratulatory. But Lydia suspected he did not think quite as much of himself as Eleanor assumed. She discerned a bone-deep unhappiness beneath his brightly malicious gaze.

“When I left the dining table, she was about to move to a new seat”—he paused for effect—“in Prince Carvelli’s lap.”

“Dear Lord,” Eleanor breathed. “Lydia, if you would excuse me?”

She did not wait for Lydia’s reply, but hurried off in the direction of the drawing room, presumably to extract Sarah from impending disaster.

“A fond friend,” Smyth said, watching her departure. “Alas, I suppose her intervention will be successful and once more we will all want for a topic of conversation.”

“I’m certain we can find some diverting subject,” Lydia replied. This was a form of conversation, the exchange of wry innuendo and ironic observation, that she knew well and had excelled at for years. “Come now, Mr. Smyth, you surely have heard some news worth imparting?”

“Let me think,” he said, holding out his arm for her. She took it and they began a leisurely stroll. “I have heard about a certain beauty whose name may soon be stricken from Boodle’s betting book as having lost the right to bear the title ‘the Unattainable.’ ”

Lydia’s heart leaped with excitement. What had led to this speculation? Had Ned been overheard saying something to someone? Or had the gossipmongers seen something in Ned’s demeanor?
Or in hers
? She disliked this last explanation, especially after Eleanor’s recent scolding. “Oh? And do you give credence to this rumor, Mr. Smyth?”

He smiled. “Oh, yes. Jenny Pickler has made a modest career of reporting a conversation she had with the beauty herself in which the beauty declared her desire to change her marital status. Lady Jenny has, one might say, come into her own armed with this disclosure.”

Smyth was speaking in the general. There was no specific speculation. She masked her disappointment.

Childe nodded toward the side of the room, and Lydia indifferently followed the direction of his gaze. She started. She wouldn’t have recognized Jenny Pickler in the beautiful, raven- haired and animated young beauty surrounded by a coterie of besotted- looking young men. The girl had clearly arrived.

“Do tell?” she said. “And have any names been forwarded as potential reasons the lady might quit her current circumstances? I am all agog to know.”

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye as they started forward again. “No,” he said. “Not yet, though Borton may be on the cusp of entering the name of a former naval captain.”

“Really?” She feigned surprise.

“I know. I thought it absurd, too,” Smyth said, patting her hand consolingly. “I told Borton that the lady in question would not settle so easily.”

Settle
? How dare he insinuate that Ned Lockton lacked in some manner.
What
manner?

“You think poorly of this naval captain?” she asked, investing her voice with icy hauteur. “Fancy. I wonder who he can be. For the only naval captains with whom I am acquainted are courageous gentlemen who fought for their king and country. I am sure you would not find anything wanting in any of them.”

Smyth shot her an assessing glance but answered easily enough. “Good heavens, no. You misunderstand me. I in no way meant to impugn the good captain’s captaining. Lord knows, I could never perform the duty he has. My nature is too volatile. I am too passionate for such employment. I should imagine one would have to have ice water in one’s veins to command men to hold under enemy fire.” They continued their leisurely stroll.

“Certainly the naval fellow to whom I refer appears to have the requisite phlegmatic mien and detached nature. I give him credit. Were I to be so frequently in this beauty’s company, I would never be able to conceal my ardor. But perhaps the captain is not burdened by intense emotion.”

She frowned at his words.

“No. All I meant, Lady Lydia,” Childe continued in a suave tone, “is that the lady of whom we are speaking has too high a regard for herself and her station to be content with anything less than the adulation she deserves. Nor should she be.” His gaze fixed on her face, his customary cynicism ebbing from his expression, revealing . . . empathy. “Besides, I believe I have tumbled on a reason for the lady’s bewildering attachment.”

“Oh?” She prayed her voice did not sound as tight as she feared it did. “Pray tell.”

“This lady has a reputation for independence and irreverence and on occasion may have sailed a mite close to the mark.” He spoke with unexpected gentleness, watching her carefully.

“And how does this explain the company she chooses?”

“What better way to reassure those conservative and cautious families who have an heir looking to wed that one is mindful of one’s reputation than by securing the attention of a gentleman with such an immaculate character?”

Though his words themselves were laudatory, the way in which Childe said them made it sound as though having an immaculate reputation was something to be pitied. And she supposed in his circle of friends, it was.
That
couldn’t really be what Society thought. That she allowed Ned to squire her around to repair some nonexistent damage to her reputation. It was laughable.

“I sympathize with the lady and I find her choice entirely reasonable,” Chide said. “A lady who is both passionate and practical is rare indeed.” He smiled warmly at her, but it was a smile in no way suggestive of intimacy.

He meant it, Lydia realized. He really could not conceive that she could be interested in Ned. She wasn’t sure how to react. It was so ludicrous.

Did Childe not have eyes? Could he not see the appeal of a tall, manly physique, a handsome vis, subtle wit, humor, gallantry, and unparalleled gentlemanliness? And a fortune, of course. Certainly other ladies had, gauging by the river of handkerchiefs that reportedly flowed into Ned’s town house.

Still, she found Childe’s concern unexpectedly touching and that had the unhappy effect of forcing her to consider at least some of what he’d said. It was true that Ned was a self-contained man of no discernible excesses. Including an excess of emotion?

But he was a
gentleman
, she reminded herself. He would not impose on a lady by making declarations of affection until he felt they could be returned.
If
he had such emotions . . .

Damn and blast. Did he love her?
Was he capable of strong feelings?
What if he wasn’t? What if all he required of her was friendship. A month ago she would have been pleased to count him so, but now that word seemed vapid and pallid, unacceptable in the face of the emotions he aroused in her heart.
Friends
.

Heat spread up her neck into her face, telling tales she would rather have kept quiet. Childe Smyth studied her with dawning understanding. Pity joined the sympathy in his face.

“Sometimes, Mr. Smyth, the appearance of a thing is not a just representation of its nature.” She sounded so confident.

He smiled. “Astute as always, Lady Lydia,” he said, bowing slightly. “I am sure you are right.”

 

Poor lass, Childe Smyth thought a while later as he watched Lady Lydia accepting the accolades of her adoring flock. She had actually fallen in love with the stick.

Someone really ought to save her.

The gaming hell stank of smoke, gin, and the stale reek of nervous sweat. Ned would like to think the latter had been exuded by his nephews as their desperation grew in pace with their losses, but over the last months his faith that the boys might have even that much sense had been extinguished. He eyed them irritably.

They no longer sat at the table, having retreated to the chairs where Ned had directed them, chastened and sullen but just sober enough not to challenge the “suggestion.”

Ned did not assume intelligence had motivated their decision to acquiesce to his directive that they take the part of spectators for the rest of the evening. If it had, they wouldn’t have been here in the first place, attempting to lose yet another fortune they didn’t have. Instead, he chalked up their acquiescence to an instinct for survival because he’d half a mind to drag them down to the docks and throw them to the press gangs. It would do them a world of good. Fortunately for them, he had too much respect for the navy to foist his nephews on it.

Instead, he’d taken a seat of his own in the game. Now he laid his cards facedown on the table and waited for the play of the two other remaining participants, Borton, who’d taken to dogging his nephews’ nocturnal vagaries out of some irrational sense of guilt even though his presence never seemed to restrain them in the least, and Tweed, a nasty young cutthroat. A half-dozen observers milled in a semicircle around the table, watching with interest. Tweed had adopted an air of uncertainty that did little to mask his glee. He was certain of his cards and thought by appearing to vacillate he could convince Ned otherwise.

Bon chance
, Ned thought. He had played “First Blink” with warships; playing card games with a would-be libertine was no hard task. Borton scowled at the three cards he held, as though force of concentration could change them. From the corner of his eye, Ned caught sight of Pip gesturing to a passing footman by holding up an empty bottle and wiggling it suggestively. Ned turned his head and gazed at the lad. Abruptly, Pip’s hand fell and the lad sunk deeper in his chair.

“Well, what of it, Tweed?” Borton finally said. “There’s five thousand on the table. Do you have enough to cover the pot if you lose?”

Tweed’s face, glistening oil in the candlelight, darkened. A pulse had commenced throbbing in his temple an hour ago and it had not disappeared. “Don’t concern yourself with my finances, Borton. I am in.”

Borton squinted once more at his cards before puffing out his cheeks and releasing his breath. He set his cards down. “I’m done.”