The Luck of the Devil (2 page)
"Gammon," he pronounced. "Totally charming. You've got the most beautiful brown eyes I've ever seen. Like a fawn's, all soft and dreamy, with tiny green and gold flecks."
Rowanne tripped again. "You must be in your cups, sir. This is highly irregular."
"Your dancing will improve with practice. That's the only fault I can find. You're not the ordinary English beauty, I'll grant them that, not some washed-out, insipid blonde they consider fashionable. The nodcocks must be blind."
Rowanne's heart was pounding, and not from the exertion of the dance. She looked around to make sure no one else could overhear this improper conversation. It was no wonder at all to her that innocent maidens were locked in their rooms when the Delversons were in town. "Please, Lieutenant. You mustn't…"
"Zeus, ma'am, I cannot very well let such an exquisite rose languish among the wallflowers. No, I'll introduce you around myself after the set. Mind, it's only that I am off to the Peninsula in the morning, otherwise I'd never let the other chaps near you. Just promise me you won't smile at any of them until I get back from the war."
"You, sir, are a complete hand. You won't even remember me tomorrow, much less when you come home."
"Ah, you wound me, fair one, doubting my constancy already. Have I ever lied to you before? I'll prove my devotion, you'll see. I know, I'll bring you a gift home from Spain. My stepaunt wants a mantilla and my stepsister wants a Toledo blade, bloodthirsty little hoyden that she is. Tell me your wish, Miss Wimberly, and I shall give proof of my memory when Bonaparte is defeated. Just don't ask for the moon and the stars. I'm only a junior officer, you know."
"And we've just met. Come home safely, that will be enough."
"Ah, a woman as gentle-hearted as she is beautiful. You see, Harry spoke truer than he knew. I shall have wonderful thoughts of English womanhood to warm my heart at lonely campfires. But come, my dear, surely you can name me a trinket to bring home. A fan? An ivory comb?"
"Miss Simpson would have my hide for saying it, sir, asking chance-met gentlemen for gifts, but I do collect miniatures."
"Small portraits?" he asked, turning her in the figure of the dance.
"No, small furniture and such. You know, for dollhouses and scale models and the like. My mother started the collection on her travels, and my father continued whenever he was posted somewhere out of England. I would be interested in seeing what Iberia has to offer, if it's not too much bother and you don't think it too forward of me."
"Not at all. Now if you had said you collected snuffboxes, that would have looked dashed peculiar. And pressed butterflies would have disappointed me. But there, I knew you were not the common daisy."
"And you are not the usual Tulip. But I thank you for the dance and the pretty compliments. Miss Grimble was correct: You were what I needed. See the gentlemen around Miss Simpson? I don't doubt they are following your lead, now that you have brought me to their attention."
"And Miss Grendel will be sure to inform them of your worth. You do have a handsome dowry, don't you? Then your Season is assured. Miss Wimberly, you are now a Toast. I have only one bit of advice to guarantee your success."
She laughed, waiting for another outrageous statement from this silver-tongued rogue. He twirled her about one final time, bowed, and left her at Miss Simpson's side while the entire assembly strained to hear the parting love words he whispered for her ears only:
"Don't drink the punch."
R
owanne was breathless and her throat was dry. Besides, she was thirsty. The refreshments at Almack's were insipid and meager, but surely a young miss whose senses were reeling could hazard a sip. Here was Lord This begging for a dance, and Sir That asking if he could pay a morning call, two plain misters rushing to fetch her soothing glasses of orgeat—and she shouldn't drink it?
The whole situation was as inexplicable as that dashing officer finding Rowanne appealing, as improbable as the whole wicked conversation. Still, Rowanne handed the cups of punch over to the Misses Fitzwaller, along with the two plain misters.
After a boulanger with Lord Fotheringay, condemned as having his wealth founded on the family's being In Trade, according to Miss Grimble's asides, and a strenuous Roger de Coverly with Lord Pilkington ("Punting on tick until a wealthy aunt sticks her spoon in the wall."), Miss Wimberly was parched. She gladly accepted a cup from Lord Hightower ("Ten thousand but a passel of brats from a first marriage.") and raised it to her lips. Before she took a sip, though, she felt eyes boring into her. Sure enough, Carey Delverson was staring at her from across the room, shaking his head no.
"I'm sorry, my lord, I find I do not care for something cool," Rowanne said, handing the glass to Miss Simpson. Hoping no beads of perspiration on her forehead would give her the lie, she told her next partner, Sir Ambrose Harkness ("Well-to-pass, but the mother is a despot.") that she felt somewhat chilled. "Do you think we might take tea in the refreshment room rather than having the contra danse?"
Thoroughly used to a female's odd crotchets and complaints, Sir Ambrose patted her arm and led her off. They had to thread their way through the happy, laughing couples waiting to make up their sets on the dance floor, and Rowanne could not help feeling that despite her new popularity, everyone else at Almack's was still having a better time than she was.
The room set aside for the sparse supper was noisy and crowded, and Rowanne gulped her tea before it could be jostled out of her hand. When her eyes stopped tearing from the scalding liquid, she took a better look around. The youngest of the Delversons seemed to be presiding over the punch bowl, with that same rascally grin, while other youths shoved their cups forward to him for refills and their young ladies giggled so hard they had to hold each other up from falling.
Her eyes narrowed, Rowanne hurried Sir Ambrose back to the dance hall. The younger Miss Fitzwaller was asleep and like to fall off her little gilt chair, while the other was hitching up her stockings! Miss Grimble frowned awesomely at her charge, who was off in a corner, nearly cuddling with a skinny youth in a lavender waistcoat. ("Hell and tarnation, a second son.") and Miss Simpson—Great Heavens, Miss Simpson was on the dance floor, being tossed about in gay abandon by Gabriel's middle-aged political friend, Lord Quinton. ("Prosy old bore with an expensive French mistress.") Even Gabe was wearing a silly smirk, as if he'd just found a fallacy in an opponent's argument or a spelling error in the newspaper.
As soon as the dance ended Rowanne herded her brother and her companion toward the exit. She was too late.
Princess Esterhazy was dragging the youngest Delverson out of the supper room by his ear, and Mrs. Drummond-Burrell and Maria Sefton were prodding the other two grinning Devils ahead of them. Countess Lieven was screeching and Lady Bessborough was laid out on a narrow lounge, a flurry of turbaned dowagers waving fans, vinaigrettes, and shrill complaints under her nose. So much for the starched-up dignity of Almack's, where only the
crème de la crème of polite society was invited, where only the highest sticklers issued edicts of proper decorum, where the youngest innocents of the ton could get thoroughly castaway on orgeat and smuggled gin.
Countess Lieven was so angry, smoke might have poured from her ears if she weren't a true lady. She couldn't birch the three miscreants, though her flailing arms indicated her fondest wish. Instead she could flay them with her tongue.
"How dare you bring your reckless pranks here, you miserable excuses for English gentlemen. Gentlemen, hah! You are nothing but nasty little boys. Where is your sense of honor, your duty to your name, your loyalty to your fellow noblemen?"
When the Russian ambassador's wife paused for breath, Harry put in: "Old Carey's off to war. That must count for something." He was grinning, his arm around his cousin. The lieutenant didn't look a whit abashed either, only raising his arm in a salute "To King and Country."
"You see, ma'am, fellow's going to be a regular hero, we couldn't do less than give him a proper send-off."
"There was nothing proper about this at all," Countess Lieven squawked. "You should have taken your hell-raking to the stews and kennels."
"Don't worry, ma'am, we still have all night. Carey's not leaving till tomorrow."
The countess turned from Harry in disgust. She scowled at the youngest mischief-maker and demanded, "And what about you, Master Joss? Are you going to plead that your big brother and older cousin led you astray? What do you have to say for yourself, sirrah?"
Joss straightened from where the wall was propping him up. "I think, ma'am, begging your pardon, that if you'd give your guests more food, they wouldn't get foxed so easily. Stale cake and toast ain't no supper. M'brother taught me never to drink on an empty stomach. Best of good fellows, St. Dillon, and old Carey too, don't you think?"
What Countess Lieven thought would only be known by those speaking Russian, but Rowanne could guess what the muttered words meant. She was an unwilling witness to the inquisition, unable to get past the group in the hallway or return to the larger rooms because so many people were pressed close behind her trying to see. She also couldn't keep herself from a barely muffled giggle, which earned her at least five censorious glares and one insouciant wink. The scarlet-coated scoundrel wasn't the least repentant. He and Harry were humming the hymn "Love the Sinners, Hate the Sin," while the lady-patronesses conferred.
Emily Cowper, who was truly the least starchy of Almack's governing board, struggled to keep her lips from twitching as she announced the committee's decision. "For the havoc you have created here this evening, and the damage done to the reputation of the institution itself, I regret that we are forced to banish you from the premises."
Harry took out a handkerchief and pretended to weep into it. Lady Cowper shook her finger at him, like a nanny scolding a little boy. "You, Your Grace, may return to Almack's when you are engaged to a proper female, not before."
Harry clutched his heart. "What, miss this place till I am forty?"
Lady Cowper ignored the histrionics and turned to Joss. "We have decided to be lenient with you, Lord Delverson, because of your age. You may return when you have graduated university."
Harry and Joss almost fell on the floor, laughing. Their cousin agreed: "Hell is likely to freeze over first! But tell me, ma'am, what is to be my sentence for the heinous crime? How long shall I be exiled?"
Lady Cowper smiled. "We shall be pleased to welcome you back into our midst, Lieutenant, as soon as the Corsican upstart has been conquered."
Harry and Joss—and some of the men behind Rowanne—were figuring odds and shouting out wagers for the betting book at White's, over which of the Devils was likely to see the inside of Almack's first.
"Out, you barbarians, get out while there is still the hint of civility about the place," Sally Jersey ordered, while the other dowager-arbiters of polite London pointed to the door and shouted "Begone" like so many exorcists in ostrich-feather headdresses.
The young Duke of St. Dillon and his brother made wobbly courtier's bows and turned to leave, but Carey crossed his arms over his broad chest and said, "Hold. I bespoke another dance with Miss Wimberly and I refuse to leave with the promise unfulfilled."
Rowanne gasped as every eye turned to her. It was no such thing! She checked her dance card to be sure, for more peculiar things had happened this evening, then hissed, "You cannot go back in there, you gudgeon, everyone else is too jug-bitten to stand, much less dance."
Mrs. Drummond-Burrell nodded approvingly. "Good gel, don't encourage the scoundrel."
A beruffled debutante with pink satin bows in her hair stepped out of the crowd and lisped: "I'd be pweased to danth with the offither." Her mother boxed the chit's ears and dragged her off.
Carey grinned and held his ground. "At least someone feels sorry for the poor soldier on the eve of going off to fight his nation's battles. Never say, my good ladies of Almack's, that you are going to deny a condemned man his last wish."
"You haven't a prayer, Carey," Joss told him. "Only the good die young. Besides, you're embarrassing the young lady. Let's go."
"You are right, Joss, and my apologies to Miss Wimberly. If I cannot have my dance, however, I still insist on a token to carry with me to bring to mind the noble cause for which we are fighting. You know, English womanhood and all that. Every knight got to carry a lady's favor for luck in battle, and I demand no less."
Princess Esterhazy stepped forward and held out a lace-edged handkerchief. "Here, you wretched boy, take it and leave."
Delverson reached for the cloth and held the princess's hand, bringing it to his lips. "How kind, Your Majesty, but not what I envisioned."
The princess snatched her handkerchief back and everyone laughed, including a few of the other patronesses. The delighted spectators waited in expectation of further entertainment, and one or two of the dowagers smiled indulgently. Once again everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves more than Rowanne! Drat the man anyway. She supposed he would never go away until he got what he wanted, whatever that might be. Goodness, he couldn't expect a kiss as forfeit for a missed dance, could he? Never! Well, at least never in front of her brother, Miss Simpson, and half the ton. And why was he grinning so widely, with his even white teeth and dimples, as if he could read her mind? The lady that she was, the lady that she would be, certainly did not make bywords of themselves in public!
Rowanne quickly glanced from side to side, fumbled to unpin the cameo brooch at her neckline, and dashed forward. With her cheeks burning, she handed the pin to Lieutenant Delverson and whispered, "For luck," while Harry and Joss cheered.
Carey bowed, blew her a kiss, and left, thank heavens. The hostesses shooed the onlookers back into the ballroom and signaled the band to begin again. Rowanne sent Gabe to fetch their cloaks and have the carriage brought round. For a moment, waiting in the foyer and hoping her cheeks had finally cooled, Rowanne thought her Season was over before it had begun. Mrs. Drummond-Burrell fixed her with a Gorgon's stare and declared that she was sorely disappointed.
"I had been impressed with you, Miss Wimberly, because you were not as giddy as the other harum-scarum young females. I was pleased to see you not succumb to the loose behavior that threatened to turn Almack's into an undignified romp for the first time in memory. But association with that young man cannot do your credit any good. To be frank, if Carey Delverson was not leaving the country tomorrow, I would vote to revoke your voucher."
Even kind-hearted Lady Cowper gave Rowanne a sorrowful look that told her that she was in disgrace, although none of the contretemps had been of Rowanne's making, and she had done the only thing possible to end the bumblebroth and send the muddle-headed Delversons on their way. A lady simply never made a spectacle of herself in such a manner. Never.
It was Sally Jersey who reassured her. That lady put her arm around Rowanne's shoulders and spoke loudly enough for the passing company to hear. "It was not at all the thing, my dear, but I vow any woman here would have done the same."
S
ome members of the ton suspected Miss Wimberly of being fast, others held that she was firm under fire. No one forgot her first appearance at Almack's. The highest sticklers might have disdained her company at their select affairs, but Rowanne might not have accepted anyway. Miss Wimberly had quite enough invitations to keep her busy, thank you.
The first weeks after the Almack's debut, London beaux wanted to meet the paragon who could attract such a noted connoisseur as Carey Delverson. The young ladies wanted to become acquainted in case the elusive St. Dillon came to call. A great deal of wildness can be excused in a twenty-five-year-old bachelor duke with a handsome face and a fortune at his command. Harry and his brother, though, traveled to Southampton with their cousin, saw Carey onto his ship, and then decided to go hunting on the Isle of Wight. Then there was talk of a new Irish stud up for auction, grouse season in Scotland, a luscious set of twins with a traveling players' company.
Rowanne's popularity continued despite the absence of the Delversons. As her notoriety wore off, Miss Wimberly came to be appreciated for her own charms, ease of conversation, quiet dignity, gentle warmth, and a dowry not to be sneezed at. She had a steady court of gentlemen, a comfortable number of lady friends, and an ever-widening circle of admirers among the ton.
On clear days Rowanne went for rides in the park at nine, morning calls at eleven, Venetian breakfasts after noon, waltz parties at three. She was back to be seen in the park at the fashionable saunter at four, then off to a dinner party, followed by the theater or opera, assembly, rout, or drum, sometimes two or three an evening. There were also jaunts to Vauxhall and picnic expeditions in the countryside, masquerades and musicales, card parties, and poetry readings. With so many functions Rowanne's wardrobe constantly needed replenishing, so she had to figure in time for shopping and fittings. Then, of course, she had to hire a dresser, in addition to her abigail.
Miss Simpson accompanied Rowanne, as did Gabe when she could drag him from his meetings and papers, but even without her brother Miss Wimberly was never without a male escort. Any number of bucks and blades, fops and fribbles were anxious to be at her side, some of them forever. Being of an elevated mind, Miss Wimberly did not keep count of the offers she was able to discourage, or the ones Gabe rejected on her behalf. They were considerable and, despite Gabriel's begging her to have one of the chaps so he could get back to his work without those awkward conversations in his library or tripping over the mooncalves in his drawing room at tea, Rowanne was not even tempted to accept a single one.
She was a success, and saw no reason to trade her pleasure-seeking freedom for the fetters of matrimony. There had been no scandals, no further missteps, and no grand passion, either. Her steady callers ranged from callow youths cheerfully following the fashion to plausible basket-scramblers more interested in her assets, with enough intelligent and sophisticated men-about-town thrown in to keep Rowanne entertained—and heart-whole. Of course she continued to read the journals for news of the war and the dispatches for the progress of Sir John Moore's troops, but so would any loyal Britisher, she told herself.
As the London Season waned with the coming of hot weather, so too did Rowanne's enjoyment of the frenetic pace. Conversations did not seem so witty, changing clothes four and five times a day grew to seem an absurd waste of time, and one ball was much like every other one: on dits served with the lobster patties, warm rooms, and warmer-blooded swains hoping to lead a young lady to a balcony or garden or indiscretion.
Rowanne wrote to her uncle in Dorset that London was growing hot and thin of company as the belle monde retired to their country estates and house parties. The old curmudgeon replied with the suggestion that she visit Lady Silber in Bath; Rowanne must need the restorative waters if she was finding London dull.
Lady Silber was Rowanne's great-aunt Cora on her mother's side, a fragile old woman, or so she said whenever Rowanne had asked her to come to London to lend the Wimberlys countenance. She was a tiny birdlike woman with the thin bones and neck of a scrawny sparrow and the nose of a parrot. Aunt Cora had a tendency to tipple and a firm belief that age bestowed the right to speak one's mind, which she did loudly, due to her own deafness and refusal to use an ear trumpet. Aunt Cora also had one favorite question: "Why ain't you married yet, gal?"
When Rowanne was a gap-toothed moppet and her parents sent her to summer at the shore, she could giggle and reply, "Because I'm just a little girl."
Later Rowanne could grin and say she wasn't even out yet.
Last year she had smiled and reminded Aunt Cora that she was in mourning.
This summer the question was not amusing. She was hardly unpacked and seated in the yellow drawing room in Laura Place when Aunt Cora shouted, "I hear you turned Almack's on its ear, girl. Why ain't you married yet?"
"There's no hurry, Aunt. I am only nineteen."
"Close on twenty, 'n I miss my guess. I was married at sixteen and a widow at twenty-one, missy. Nothing wrong with that."
Rowanne saw a great deal wrong with it, but knew Aunt Cora grew deafer with disagreements. She sipped her tea. "I haven't met anyone who suits me and I see no reason to contract an alliance just for the sake of being married."
"That's a hen-witted notion, girl. Every woman's got to get married. Marriage is a lot like medicine: They all taste bad, but if you take it sooner rather than later, it might work. If something better comes along after, well…"
"Aunt Cora!" Rowanne put her cup down with a thump.
"Don't you go all niffy-naffy on me now, miss. Don't think I didn't hear all the gossip from London, and how you almost blotted your copybook. Only a married woman can smile at all the handsome rogues she wants, if she picks her husband right."
Rowanne took a deep breath. "That's not the kind of marriage I want. I don't want some man to marry me for my looks—and have him keep looking. And I don't want to become any man's chattel either, or have some wastrel play ducks-and-drakes with my inheritance."
"Hoity-toity, miss."
"That's right, I am a managing kind of female. You know how I have been running Wimberly House and taking charge of Gabriel. I am too used to being my own mistress to let any man ride roughshod over me, and I would not respect any man weak enough to let me hold sway over him."
"Poppycock. What about children? If all you young bubble-brains thought the same the human race would die out and rabbits would take over the world. Biggest regret of my life, it is, not having more nieces and nephews to boss around."
"Then why did you not remarry and have children of your own?"
Aunt Cora cupped her hand to her ear. "Merry and half-chilled what? You know I can't hear when you mumble, girl."
Rowanne smiled. "I think I should like to have children, but there is still no rush. Perhaps when I am an ape-leader at twenty-five I shall consider a marriage of convenience. Meanwhile I am independent, comfortably established, and I have Gabe for protection."
"Pshaw. Some protection. The boy forgets he has a sister half the time."
"Yes, but he could not very well get along without me. Can you imagine Gabriel overseeing the servants and keeping household accounts?"
"Then he should get him a wife of his own, not keep his sister as chatelaine. And you can't humbug me, missy. Your brother is way more than nineteen and I hear no rumors of him dropping the handkerchief either. What's the slowtop about anyway? He owes it to his name. I know that rackety father of yours never spent any time with either of you, but didn't he at least teach his son to carry on the line?"
"I don't know, Aunt Cora." And she really didn't. Somehow it never occurred to her that Gabe would marry. She had to threaten to burn his papers to get him to socialize, and he never danced more than duty required or took a female out for drives, to her knowledge. But of course he should marry.
After Uncle Donald, Gabriel, Viscount Wimberly, would be the Earl of Clyme, an ancient title that must not die out because Rowanne's brother forgot to find a bride the same way he forgot to eat dinner when there was an interesting debate at the House. Well, Rowanne had seen to his needs for the last years, she would just have to play matchmaker for him too. Hadn't she just told Aunt Cora what a good manager she was? Her girlfriends had always found him attractive, she knew, and they were always wistfully asking if Gabe was coming along on any outings, so finding a wife for him should not be difficult. On the other hand, finding the perfect wife for her dearly loved brother would take a little more thought.
That evening, when Rowanne could not fall asleep due to the unfamiliar bed, the early hour Aunt Cora insisted on retiring, and that lady's snores echoing through the walls of the little house, she thought about a bride for Gabe.
And her own future.
A milk-and-water schoolroom chit would never do for Gabe. He needed a woman who could anchor him to the world outside his library, oversee his career, and guarantee his comfort. In other words, he needed an organized, managing female, just like Rowanne, one who would resent an interfering sister-in-law. Miss Wimberly could never see herself living as a maiden aunt in such a woman's household either, so she would have to leave Grosvenor Square.
Perhaps she could move in with Aunt Cora permanently, sip sherry, and raise pug dogs. Maybe Uncle Donald would finally invite her to Dorset, to keep him company in his old age. Maybe pigs would fly. Or Rowanne and Miss Simpson could set up housekeeping somewhere by themselves. Now that would cause a dust-up even Gabe would notice. Rowanne had the financial means, but she didn't know if she had the backbone. Ah well, there was always marriage.
She tossed the pillows to the floor and rolled over.
Rowanne had been looking forward to a relaxing month or so with her elderly aunt in Bath after the bustle of the London Season, walking on the strand, strolling in Sydney Gardens, catching up on her reading. Aunt Cora had other plans, and she was about as fragile in her determination as a red-eyed bull. Lady Silber was going to snabble her wayward niece an eligible parti if it killed both of them. In Aunt Cora's estimation, eligible meant any male between seventeen and seventy. She dragged Rowanne off to the Pump Room daily, to the Upper and Lower Assembly Rooms, and to as many other entertainments as she and her ancient cronies could devise. She made sure Rowanne accepted the multitude of invitations from the many other London visitors in Bath for the summer, and especially from the local great houses. Aunt Cora was positive a gentleman meeting even Rowanne's demanding standards could easily be found.
Every evening, when Rowanne came home and only wished to kick off her slippers and sink into bed, Aunt Cora would call out, loudly enough to wake all the servants, if not the next-door neighbors, "Well, did you find Prince Charming? Why ain't you married yet?"
R
owanne was delighted to be back in London, vowing this Season would be different. There would be no more junketing
around, burning herself to the socket with no higher goal than filling her dance
card or finding the most outrageous bonnet. Now Rowanne had a Mission. First she
would reconnoiter, then plan her campaign.
She cornered her quarry in the breakfast room on the day following her return. The servants had finished serving and Miss Simpson had not yet returned from her month's vacation to her brother's family in Kent. Gabriel was reading the morning papers over his coffee and kippers.
Rowanne buttered her toast. She had not been able to imagine any graceful way of bringing the topic she wished to discuss into a conversation so she simply came out and asked: "Gabe, have you ever considered marrying?"
Her brother did not even put down the papers. "Poor puss, you have spent too much time with Aunt Cora, haven't you?"
"Quite, but surely, though, isn't it time you thought of taking a wife?"
Gabe laid the newspaper aside and boosted his spectacles back up on his nose. "I know what it is, you are finally going to take one of the coxcombs who are forever littering the place. Good. Which one shall it be, so I'm sure to make myself available to hear his declaration in form?"
"Don't be a goose, it is no such thing. Besides, my friends are not coxcombs, just because they are not all as serious-minded as you are."
"Not even Clifford Fairborn? I swear he composed an ode for every day you were gone. And yellow pantaloons, my dear."
"Very well, Lord Fairborn is a coxcomb, but I was talking about you." She poured him another cup of coffee.
"If you are worried about leaving, Ro, don't be. I really can manage, you know. You've trained Mrs. Ligett to natter at me quite competently, and Hinkle would never let me be seen in anything less than prime twig. You have been gone a whole month and Wimberly House is still standing. The bailiffs are not even pounding at the door."
"Housekeepers and valets are all well and good, but I am speaking of a wife, a helpmate, heirs, someone to carry on the title. You have to wed."
Gabriel opened the paper again. "Did you read today's news?"
"You are changing the subject, Gabriel Wimberly."
"Oh, I just wondered if you saw that St. Dillon's cousin was mentioned in the dispatches again, promoted in the field for bravery. I thought you'd be interested. Perhaps I was wrong."
Rowanne tore the newspaper out of his hands, knocking over the cream pitcher. Gabriel muttered into his coffee cup, "Perhaps not."
Despite Gabe's lack of enthusiasm or cooperation, Rowanne was determined to try her hand at matchmaking. She believed that if she could just bring the proper female to his attention, in a quiet, comfortable setting away from the mad crushes he disliked, Gabe would be quick enough to fix his interest
Therefore, instead of coercing Gabe into escorting her to grand society balls, she accepted invitations to literary salons, where a well-featured bluestocking might appeal to him. Gabe refused to listen to one more dilettante spout one more opinion. Instead of attending Almack's, where two bewigged and liveried footmen still guarded the punch bowl every Wednesday evening, Rowanne cultivated some of the Whig hostesses at their political suppers, seeking a woman who shared Gabe's ideologies. The men stayed all evening with their port and cigars, never joining the ladies after dinner at all, and Rowanne was so bored she took to bringing her needlework along. She was petit-pointing cushion seats for a tiny dining set she had found in a furniture showroom in Bath, left there by a journeyman cabinetmaker. At least her miniature collection was coming along, now that she was not keeping such a rackety pace, even if she was no closer to seeing her brother settled in wedded bliss.
Not being a hen-hearted female, Rowanne did not give up, even when the winter Little Season was half over. She crossed out intellectuals and politically oriented ladies from her mental list, along with brittle belles who made Gabe's hands perspire, twittery debs he confessed a desire to throttle, and country girls who only spoke of fox hunts and rootcrops, foreign
languages to her citified brother. Maybe a more mature lady? But Rowanne was not about to consign her brother to any spinster at her last prayers. In all of London, with so many women on the lookout for a husband, surely there must be one to appeal to a lovable lobcock like her absentminded brother.
Rowanne started having small at-homes at Wimberly House. She invited her own admirers to keep Gabe unsuspecting, fellow bureaucrats like Lord Quinton to keep him in attendance, and every unattached young lady she could find. She had no trouble finding a great many, once her at-homes became noted for her collection of eligible bachelors, not the least of which was Gabe, heir to an earl and possible cabinet post. Miss Winslow played the pianoforte very prettily, Miss Castleberry was a dab hand at chess, Miss Ashford's father was an African missionary. Gabe listened and lost and asked questions, and never mentioned the girls again. He was the perfect host, or a perfect dolt, in his sister's eyes.
She kept looking through the winter and into spring, considering the merits of every girl she met. Heavens, Rowanne feared she was beginning to resemble Miss Grimble with her research. She even invited that redoubtable woman and her charge, Lady Diana Hawley-Roth, even though Lady Diana made Rowanne's knees quake. Poor Gabe almost developed a stutter before the evening was done, under the basilisk stare of the companion and the calculating appraisal of the Beauty.
If informal gatherings were too general—and too easy for Gabe to escape by getting lost in a debate with one of his gentleman friends—Rowanne would throw intimate dinners, before a ball, after the theater. With less than ten people at table, conversation had to be general, and maybe a heretofore unappealing lady would shine in Gabe's view. Rowanne was desperate for even a glimmer. She hired a new chef.
She couldn't have only females sit to dine with Gabriel, herself, and Miss Simpson, of course, so Rowanne kept inviting loyal members of her court. She was as popular as ever, perhaps more so for being less accessible and for having one of the finest chefs in Town, but she did not wish to give any of her admirers false hopes. Therefore she alternated Corinthians with Tulips, Town bucks with green boys, a lovesick Clifford Fairborn with a married schoolmate of Gabe's, and the persistent widower Lord Martindale with her brother's mentor Lord Quinton, to even the numbers with her prospective sisters-in-law.
At last her efforts were a success! Just when Rowanne feared another summer with Aunt Cora with nothing to report, wedding bells were in the air, a proposal was made and accepted. Unfortunately, it was Lord Quinton straining his corset to lay his heart at Miss Simpson's feet, those feet that had once danced the reel so merrily at Almack's.
At least a summer wedding was planned. Rowanne insisted on helping with the preparations and the trousseau and seeing the bride safely to her brother's house in Kent for the ceremony, so naturally she did not have time to travel to Bath at all.
"Shall you mind, Rowanne?" Miss Simpson asked her.
"Not going to Bath? Devil a bit. Of course I shall miss you after all these years of having you as my teacher and my friend, but I should feel like the veriest beast if I put my own welfare above your happiness."
"I never thought to marry after all these years, you know. I hope I am doing the right thing."
"I'm sure I hope so too. I cannot help worrying over what Miss Grimble told us about Lord Quinton's
chérie amour. Won't that bother you?"
"Yes, it would," the proper ex-governess answered, "if I intended to let him keep the connection. He'll be too busy though."
"Why, Miss Simpson, I never!"
"Me neither, dear, but I hope to start."
Early fall brought another marriage, but Rowanne took no credit for this one at all. All of London was reeling from the shocking news that Lady Hawley-Roth, heiress and Diamond of the first water, had run away with a knight of the baize table. Diana the Hunter had bagged herself a weasel. Word had it that her parents were so furious they turned Miss Grimble off without a reference.
Rowanne found herself in need of a companion, lest doubts about her adherence to society's strictures reflect poorly on Gabe, or keep any available females from being seen in her company. More important, she needed Miss Grimble's wealth of information if she was ever to find her brother the ideal spouse. At this point Rowanne would have settled for a less than ideal female, so long as she could make Gabe come up to scratch. She sent a letter to the Hawley-Roth address, telling Miss Grimble that she would be welcome at the Wimberly House at her convenience. There was no reply, and Rowanne wondered if the irate parents had even forwarded her letter.
A few months later it hardly mattered that she was unchaperoned, for Rowanne was losing her taste for the gay whirl of society. The newspapers were reporting casualty lists from the Peninsula daily, and the tolls were staggering. It seemed inconceivable to her that the ton could continue with their endless revels when so many of their sons and brothers were being cut down in their youth. Captain Delverson had been reported wounded at Oporto.
Rowanne was content with fewer parties, smaller dinners, old friends, throwing only the occasional female at her brother's head. She enjoyed quiet evenings with her projects while Gabriel read aloud or worked on his papers. Rowanne and the household staff had converted part of the smaller sitting room into a workshop for her miniature collection, with chests for supplies and an oilcloth-covered table for her messier ventures. The other half of the sitting room was filled with comfortable chairs and sofas, a cozy fireplace, and plenty of good working lights—and of course the collection itself.
Rowanne's miniatures were more than dollhouse toys by this time and were displayed cabinet-style on shelves in specially designed cupboards with glass-paneled doors. Some shelves were divided into complete room settings, others just held special objects as curios. Rowanne had model chairs from Mr. Chippendale and inch-wide dishes from Spode that her mother had commissioned when ordering new tableware for Wimberly House. Two room settings sported thumbnail family groupings painted by Lawrence as a favor to her father when he was doing the viscount's portrait, and palm-size brass beds were covered with sheets painstakingly embroidered with the family crest by her old nanny. Last Christmas Gabe had presented her with a silver tea service he'd had made for her, the whole thing, tray and all, no longer than her smallest finger. She had tiny gold filigree chairs from Russia, a carved cradle from Germany, and replicas of marble statues from Italy. There were working clocks, if one was careful about winding them, and wooden bowls of porcelain fruit.
Rowanne herself contributed tapestry weavings and painted-velvet rugs, little watercolors in locket frames,
papier-mâché flowers—and whatever else she thought to try her hand at. It was taking her most of the winter to string Austrian glass beads into a crystal chandelier.
Miss Grimble arrived finally and, after assessing the house, the kitchens, stables, and attics, decided to stay while she wrote her memoirs. No mention was made of her previous position.
"I wouldn't take on just any young lady, you know. But yes, I can see where that brother of yours would be a challenge." Miss Grimble did not say that getting Miss Wimberly fired off would appear much more likely, and much better for her own tarnished reputation. The chit had to be nudging twenty-one. Time and past for a wealthy miss to be leg-shackled. They got strange notions after that. She nodded. "Getting a male settled would be a new twist for the book."
"I would hate to see my family named in a publication, Miss Grimble."
"Yes, yes, I can see where you would. No matter, I have enough material for several volumes. I can write while you are involved with your hobbies." The forbidding dame had been impressed by the collection. "Shows a serious turn of mind. At least you're not likely to chuck it all and go haring off to the Continent with some ivory-tuner. Now about Lord Wimberly. Your brother is known to be high-minded and dedicated. Dull."
"But he is the dearest creature in existence. He just does not like to make small talk or listen to gossip."
"He's a misfit in society, with no bark on it, but he's rich and titled, and there are a lot of widgeons wanting nothing more than a house to manage. We'll find a peagoose who will take him."
"That's no problem. Women like Gabriel. It is he who has no interest."
"Not peculiar, is he?"
"Peculiar?" Rowanne colored, then remembered that book of memoirs. "Of course not, and if you are going to go on like that, I don't think—"
"You never can tell. There's Lord—"
"Miss Grimble!"
The dragon recalled that she really did need this position, if only until the manuscript was completed. "I daresay we can find him a suitable wife in jig time."
"But he has to love her."
"That will take longer. My book might be done before then, but we can try. It will mean Almack's every week to look over the new crop of debutantes, and the major crushes where everyone and his uncle comes and brings his sister. A lot of tea parties and shopping expeditions, places where females gather. Are you ready for that, Miss Wimberly?"
Rowanne was ready to face society and enjoy herself doing it. Captain Delverson was mentioned again in the dispatches, back in the thick of things, but of course that had nothing whatsoever to do with her change of heart.
S
ome men were fortunate in combat. They could come through whole battles without ever seeing the enemy. Others considered themselves blessed that they were still alive after the bloodiest confrontations. The battered survivors could look around at their fallen comrades and in dark humor declare, "Things could have been worse."
"Things could have been worse" became the motto of the men serving under the Honorable Harmon Carrisbrooke Delverson. Carey got his troops into—and out of—more scrapes than any other junior officer serving under Sir John Moore. Sir John wanted to put the bold hellion on the general staff, to make use of his daring strategies and lightning decisions, but the lieutenant preferred to stay in the field. "The men appreciate when their commands come from someone they trust."
"Aye, and someone willing to die alongside them. Loyalty's worth more than the few shillings we pay the poor sods. The men need you. See that you stay alive for them."
Carey did, rising to captain at Coruña. He took a musket ball in one shoulder and a saber slash in the thigh, and still stood to rally his men and get them back to the lines. As he rode to the rescue of one besieged recruit who found himself holding a piece of his ear in his hand, Carey called out, "Things could have been worse. The frog who did it is missing part of his skull." He rode on into one skirmish after another, in remarkable displays of horsemanship and sword-work, with a smile at the end for the troops gallant enough to follow him.
The men adored him and considered Carey some kind of talisman. From being one of the Delverson Devils, he became the Lucky Devil. He might get lost behind enemy lines, but he came back, with a sack of fresh-killed chickens. The replacement drummer may have beat charge instead of retreat, but the Frenchies were just as confused, and fled.
Delverson's legendary good fortune was quirky, never without cost. A cannonball at Oporto that missed him by inches would have taken his head clean off, if his favorite mount had not just got shot out from under him, leaving Carey with a knee wrenched so badly he used crutches for a month.
The left-handed luck extended past the battles, in escapades that made the captain's name a byword in mess tents and officers' clubs, such as the night an irate Madrileño esposo went berserk and shredded every item in Captain Delverson's tent. He would have shredded Carey too, if the Devil had been sleeping in his own bed. Instead he was busy having his nose broken by another irate husband coming home unexpectedly. Another time Carey foolishly sat in at a high-stakes card game at a local taberna. He'd had too much to drink to pay attention to his hand and went down heavily, losing far more than he could afford. So did the winner, who was found the next morning with his throat cut, victim of a neighborhood scheme to rebuild the local economy.
As for women, ah, the Spanish women with their dark eyes and red lips were nearly Carey's downfall, luck or not. The daughter of a grandee almost had him trapped into marriage, her duenna screeching when her mother rushed into the room and hysterically claimed El Diablo Delverson as her lover. All three women turned on him, with vases, chamber pots, and crucifixes. It could have been worse, of course. He could have been married to one of the shrews.
Such exploits kept the men in spirits, if anything could on the hard, hot drive across the Peninsula. The marches were dusty, the landscape painted in barren ocher tones. Insects, diseases, and Spanish banditos made conditions hellish; Soult's tactics of dividing up the British troops, separating them from their slower supply trains, made commands near impossible, ambushes likely, hunger and thirst daily companions. It could have been worse, the captain reminded: They could have been in the navy.
Sometimes it couldn't get any worse. Between battles, when the furious action left no time for thought, and after the victory celebrations to forget the losses and the exhaustion, sometimes Captain Delverson did not feel lucky at all. He reread his cousins' infrequent letters of races and wagers months past, and his father's missives about crops and country neighbors. Lord Delverson wrote that he was proud of his son, but missed him too, especially now that his young wife Eleanor had succumbed to an inflammation of the lungs. At least Lord Delverson had his and Eleanor's daughter Suzannah for company at Delmere in Dorset, and Eleanor's young sister Emonda too, while Carey had his men and madcap antics miles away and lifetimes apart, with his letters and a cameo brooch to remind him of home.
Sweltering in a musty tent, with no water to wash and only his coat for a bed and a flickering candle to see by, Carey would flip open the locket and take heart from the woman who smiled back at him. He thought she must be the Wimberly chit's mother, for the girl in the tiny portrait had her hair powdered, but they were close in appearance from what he could remember. No matter, the lady in the locket was sweet and perfumed and floating on some gallant's arm at Almack's; she was England and home, and she smiled at him and wished him luck.
"Bloody generals cannot get enough rations or ammunition here. You'd think the least they could do is deliver the mail! Look at this, Rudd. I get no correspondence for months on end, and now a blasted avalanche of—Oh, God, no."
"Cap'n?" The batman looked up from where he was polishing Carey's boots. Delverson's tanned face was ashen and the hand that was clutching a tattered, black-bordered sheet was trembling. Rudd searched out the last bottle of Portuguese brandy he'd been saving. "Bad news, sir?"
"My father. His heart gave out, the solicitor says, last March. Bloody hell, that was five months ago! Damn, I should have been there!"
Rudd put a glass in the captain's hand. "If it were suddenlike, you wouldn't of known anyways, even if they could of sent for you. Is the man handling things for you?"
Carey drained the glass and held it out for a refill. "Yes, I suppose. I don't know. He wants me to come home and decide about the tenants' roofs, of all the cork-brained ideas. What does the bastard think I am doing here? Having a picnic with the señoritas, that I should just pack up and leave, saying 'Sorry, I recalled another engagement'? Blast, the general is set to take a stand at Cifuente; I cannot ask for leave just days before an engagement."
"I'm thinking roofs can wait. They waited this long, ain't they? Or send the bloke your dibs, if you trust him." Rudd pulled out the loaf of bread and slab of cheese he was hoarding for the coming battle, in case the supply lines were cut again. He didn't trust the commanders any more than he trusted the French. Captain Delverson, now that was another matter. Hadn't the captain hired him on as his personal servant when the surgeons declared Rudd unfit for battle? What was Rudd going to do in England with a wooden leg and a patch over one eye? Starve, that's what, and he may as well starve in Spain. Wouldn't do to let the captain drink on an empty stomach.
Carey absentmindedly cut a slice of cheese. He too had learned to eat whenever he had the chance. "I trust old Hayes, but he's in London; Delmere is in Dorset. Besides, there's more. It seems I am now responsible for two females, my stepsister Suzannah and her mother's sister."
Rudd thought about that one for a while. "Sounds like the second female is your aunt."
"Emonda Selcroft my aunt? The chit is barely seventeen, I'd wager. She was a timid little wren when she came to live at Delmere, much younger than her sister Eleanor, who was considerably younger than my father. Even then Emonda was the biggest goosecap you'd ever find, a watering pot afraid of her own shadow. If a chap should even suggest that the wind noise in the chimney sounded like one of the ancestors, she'd shriek for days."
"Bedeviled her, did you?"
Carey had to smile. "Not me so much as Harry. He couldn't resist. And Joss was always fond of snakes and toads. We were invited to take school vacations at the Abbey, one county over, after Emonda came to live with Eleanor and the governor. What in bloody hell does old Hayes expect me to do about Emonda?"
"What about t'other female? Your stepsister?"
"Suzannah's worse in her way. Last time I saw her, before I shipped out, she was a thirteen-year-old hoyden up in the trees with the local squire's son."
"Time cures a lot of high spirits, I'm thinking."
"It didn't do a lot for Harry and Joss. Damn, females and farming!" He had another glass. Rudd cut a slice of bread and shoved it near his hand, where Carey was sorting through the rest of his mail. "Bunch of condolences. What in hell do I care if some old harridan's got nothing better to do than write about her sympathy for my loss? He was my father, blast it!" Carey threw the glass across the tent and stormed out.
"Waste of good brandy, if you ask me," Rudd muttered after him.
When Captain Delverson returned some hours later—how far could he go with French troops behind every other hill?—he finished reading the letters. The scrawled envelope had to be from Suzannah; what had his father been about to get the chit so little schooling? Carey's stepsister wrote that she was distraught at the loss, but Carey should not worry about her, only about killing all the Frenchies he could find. She could come cook for him if he wanted, otherwise she hoped he would send his permission for her to marry Heywood Jeffers, the squire's son. So much for hopes that Suzannah was maturing into a sensible female.
The next letter brought him even less satisfaction. Emonda wrote in a thin, small hand, twice crossed so he could barely decipher the words. She too would miss Lord Delverson, who was a fine man to have taken in a homeless orphan like herself and even set aside a small dowry for her. Emonda did not mean to be a drain on Carey, she wrote, because she was no relative of his whatsoever and would not like to be a burden. Emonda went on to explain that she would go out for a governess as soon as Carey sent instructions as to which relatives she should send Suzannah. Unless, of course, he meant to let Suzannah wed the neighbor's boy.
Let his sister marry at fifteen and his seventeen-year-old stepaunt set out in the world to make her own living? Carey would sooner help Napoleon cross the Channel. Furious, he took out pen and paper.
You stay right where you are at Delmere, he wrote Emonda, and make sure that Suzannah does the same. Seeing that she doesn't
go off on some jingle-brained start is the least you can do for my fathers memory. If you wish to be an instructor of young ladies, I suggest you start with your niece. I shall be in touch with Mr. Hayes concerning the estate since I am unable to return to England until after the next campaign. Yr. obed. servant.
Then he wrote to the solicitor and to Harry, hoping the letter would find his scapegrace cousin wherever he was: Cousin, please do not let me down. Get to Dorset posthaste, make sure the bailiff is honest, and, above all, find some respectable woman to oversee the girls. Yrs. He added a postscript: And keep your hands off Emonda. She's family. Carey didn't think his mousy little aunt was in Harry's style, being a tiny dab of a washed-out blonde with die-away airs, but it never hurt to be careful where his cousin was concerned.
Having done what he could about family matters—hell and blast, he was head of the family now!—Captain Delverson pulled out another sheet and wrote a letter of appreciation to the only condolence note that made any sense. Miss Rowanne Wimberly had written how sad he must be to learn such news at a distance, and how helpless to change anything. She understood because her own parents had died when she could not be with them and she missed them still. She wrote in an elegant copperplate that she was sure his father must have been proud of him, and then she wished him Godspeed.
In the middle of his sorrow and Emonda's hysteria, in the chaos of war, Miss Wimberly was like a safe harbor. On the eve of battle, Carey took out the cameo and wrote a letter to the girl in the locket.
Some two months later, after a bloody battle at Talavera that had turned into more of a rout than a retreat, Captain Delverson lay on a cot in a deserted, bug-infested farmhouse, feverish from a saber slash across the palm of his left hand. The field surgeons were all for amputation, but the captain could still walk, and walk he did, right out to his horse and Rudd and this abandoned hacienda where he would either recover or not, without suffering worse at those butchers' hands. Rudd was able to bring him food and medicine and mail from headquarters. The batman was pleased to see the letter with the crested seal, for now maybe the captain would rest easy, knowing his cousin was looking after the lasses.
Carey ripped the envelope awkwardly with one hand and eagerly read Harry's scrawl.
Not to worry, cuz, Harry wrote. All at first oars. You've got a good steward, lands in good heart. And Joss and I found a likely widow in the village, hired her on to move into Delmere. Good-looking woman too, this Mrs. Reardon. Now you've got nothing to worry about except learning the fandango and keeping all the señoritas happy.
Carey fell back on the bed, groaning. Things could be worse, he told himself. Harry could have installed Harriet Wilson, the most notorious courtesan in London, to chaperone the innocents. Instead he'd only hired Mrs. Reardon, the late Lord Delverson's mistress!
L
ord Wellesley himself called Captain Delverson into headquarters concerning his request for leave.
"You could sell out, boy. No one could fault you for that, now that you have duties at home. You've given your pound of flesh, aye, and accounted for more French losses than half a battalion of Home Guard."
"No, sir, the job's not done. I'll come back, if I can just take care of family matters. I'd like to see a proper surgeon about my hand too, while I am in England. These quacks here tell me to keep it in a sling, that I'll never have use of it again, and it's liable to cause blood poisoning. I've been rubbing in horse liniment, though, and I think it's loosening up some. Oh, and with your permission, sir, I'll need to take my batman Rudd. It's deuced hard dressing with one hand."
Sir Arthur stacked some papers on his desk. "You go take care of the family business, lad, but I am not sure about Rudd or the physicians." He looked down his grand beak and smiled. "If you smell like a stable and you cannot get your pants down, maybe you'll stay out of trouble."
Carey's first stop in London was Delverson House, the St. Dillon town residence. Even with only one working hand, he was ready to strangle Harry. Every gentleman worth the name knew and honored the ancient tenet about not fouling one's own nest. A man did not introduce his mother to his lightskirts, he did not bring his bits of muslin to tea with his aunts, and he did not set up his uncle's mistress two doors down from his cousin's schoolroom! Harry had a lot to answer for. If he knew about Mrs. Reardon… No, Carey decided, not even Harry could be so skitter-witted or so lost to convention. If he did not know, he damn well should have made inquiries before throwing Emonda and Suzannah into such a devilish coil.
Strangling was too good for Harry. Captain Delverson decided he'd make his cousin accompany him to Dorset instead, to face the hysterical scene bound to be waiting at Delmere. Harry could have the task of explaining to Emonda that she had been living with a demi-rep for months. For himself, Captain Delverson would rather face Marshal Soult again.
Unfortunately for Carey's plans, Delverson House looked and smelled like an abandoned barracks. Which was not to say Harry was not in residence. The only housemaids willing to work for St. Dillon were more familiar with his bedroom than his broom closet, and a little grease and grime were beneath Harry's notice as long as the stables were spotless. Harry was as liable to be down in the kitchens dicing with the footmen as sleeping in some hell in a barmaid's embrace. Fortunately for Harry, the old butler Turvey hadn't seen the master in months and had no notion as to his whereabouts.
The house might be falling down around Turvey's white-haired ears, but the stables behind the mews were ready for a riding party. Carey borrowed one of the sleek beasts and set off for the Surgeon General's quarters at the War Office.
Three physicians poked and prodded, stuck pins in his fingers, and nodded gravely.
"It looks healed, but it may putrefy. Best to resign the commission now."
"Not much movement," said the second. "You'll never have the use of it, be a hazard in battle."
"Regard the amount of pain," the third medico advised his colleagues, stabbing Delverson with a wickedly pointed instrument.
In one minute Carey was going to teach the learned doctors a thing or two about pain with his good right arm. "Devil take it, man, that hand is attached to a living person, not a cadaver."
"Quite. To continue, I would say the muscles are not permanently severed. The wound itself should remain salutary, without more trauma. With proper exercise, the digits might regain some mobility."
Which was precisely what Carey wanted to hear, so he forgave the surgeons and bought himself a large-size snuffbox to manipulate in his hand on the way to Dorset in one of Harry's carriages.
Carey and his man Rudd spent the night in Winchester and proceeded to Delmere, at Blandford, Dorsetshire, early the following morning.
If Captain Delverson had any hopes the situation was better than he surmised, or the county was ignorant of the bumble-broth, those hopes were soon quashed like a beetle underfoot.
Their first stop was the stables where Ned, the old groom who had set Carey on his first pony, welcomed the captain home by spitting in the straw and saying," 'Bout time you got here. Ain't what a body likes, seeing such a one as that in your mama's place."
Pofford the butler, another longstanding employee, greeted Carey with a doleful shake of his bald head. "Now maybe the vicar will come to call."
Before seeking out the ladies, Carey sent for Mrs. Tulliver, the housekeeper and best baker of gingerbread a boy ever knew. She was no longer on the payroll, Pofford informed him.
"What? Tully would never leave the place. Her mother was housekeeper before her."
"Indeed, but the new ah, mistress, found her outspoken and 'uppity,' I believe was the word. Fortunately his late lordship remembered Mrs. Tulliver in his will. She was able to take rooms in Widow Vane's house in the village."
"Get her back. Before you go, have a carriage wait outside, won't you? Oh, and take one of the housemaids, one of our people, upstairs and see about helping Mrs. Reardon pack. She will be leaving within the hour, with every item she came with."
"And none else. I understand, milord. It will be my pleasure. Shall I announce you now?"
"What? In my own home? But yes, if we are in for high melodrama, let us have all the fanfare."
It was more of a farce. Emonda jumped up like a snake had crossed her foot, and her look gave no doubt that she considered Carey a viper indeed. She was swathed in stiff black bombazine, making her pale complexion and light hair even more colorless, and she was even scrawnier and more pinch-faced than he recalled. She clutched her needlework to her unprepossessing bosom and fled the room.
Mrs. Reardon, by way of contrast, wore gold tissue silk, much too fancy for a morning gown, cut much too low and tight to conceal her nearly over-abundant charms, and a topaz necklace, much too similar to one Eleanor had worn. With her reddish-blond hair and vibrant lips, her languid motions as she raised her plumpish self from the loveseat to lift her hand for Carey's kiss, Regina Reardon was everything Emonda was not—except a lady. Nor did she take her dismissal like a gently bred female, even though she was planning to leave soon on her own. A harborside alehouse doxy could not have expressed herself more loudly or more colorfully, with shattering punctuation. Luckily Carey had never been fond of his stepmama's grouping of china shepherdesses along the mantel. He sat at his ease while Mrs. Reardon stormed on, concentrating on turning the snuffbox in his left hand's fingers. When the dramatics wound down, Carey smiled and in a tone of voice bespeaking reason and firm resolve asked, "How much?"
The French might think love was the universal language; the British knew better. Mrs. Reardon licked her ruby lips and smiled back. "St. Dillon assured me a year's employment; I have only been paid for the quarter."
Carey waved his hand. "A contract is a contract."
"And I had to give up the lease on the cottage. A new place would cost dearly."
Carey studied the snuffbox. "I should think you might find a change of neighborhood to your liking."
"But I quite like it here. Of course, if I could afford London prices, I might consider moving away from my dear friends."
"I think you'll enjoy London. All the new sights and entertainments." Damn if he couldn't almost flip it open with his left hand.
"Do you think your cousin will be in London soon?"
So St. Dillon had stirred another pie. Carey shrugged, toting another debt in Harry's column.
Mrs. Reardon sighed. "I am not as young as I once was. Making new, ah, friends will not be so easy."
Carey gallantly stepped into the breech, as she knew he would: "Exquisite women like yourself only ripen with time, like fine wine. The Town Beaux are true connoisseurs, but I would naturally not expect a rare sherry to go for lowest price at auction."
"Might you consider bidding yourself, to see such a precious bottle protected?"
Carey picked a speck of lint off his jacket sleeve. "I regret that it was my father who was interested in keeping the cellars stocked, not myself."
Mrs. Reardon regretted it too; the handsome captain would have suited her to the nines, as generous as he was being. She had one more arrow in her quiver. No, she had two, counting the one reserved for bigger game. She patted her stomach. "You know, my lord, your father did not die quietly in his bed as we gave out."
Carey raised one eyebrow in question. "You begin to interest me, ma'am."
If that was a slur, Mrs. Reardon ignored it. "Well, he died in bed. I sent for his man and we brought him back here with no one the wiser."
"I owe you for that, ma'am."
"I rather thought you did. A woman needs a carriage of her own, to get around in London."
The coach and four was reduced to a chaise and pair, and the final price for Mrs. Reardon's departure and silence was ultimately agreed upon. Her leaving was not as quiet as Carey had hoped, once he insisted on getting the topaz necklace back, despite the fact that Suzannah was much too young for jewels and Emonda would have no use for it, being in mourning. Another tirade ensued when Mrs. Reardon saw her bags being carried out and loaded in a waiting carriage, without even time to change her gown. Only a particularly ugly vase on a hall table suffered the lady's ire as Captain Delverson escorted her to the coach by means of an iron-hard grip on her upper arm.
Carey wiped his brow, winked at the gaping footman in the hall, and asked if his sister and Miss Selcroft could attend him in the library.
Emonda slunk in, clutching an already-damp handkerchief. Hell, Carey thought, and poured himself a brandy. Emonda's eyes widened, almost as if she feared he would overindulge, lose control, and go on a ravening rampage after her virtue. "Oh, sit down, Emmy. I am not about to eat you." She took the seat as far from him as possible and perched on the edge of her chair, ready to run. Carey went on. "I am deuced sorry about this hobble. How did you let such a thing happen?"
"How did I let it happen?" She gazed at him as if he'd sprouted another head. "You ordered me to stay here to see about Suzannah, and you told St. Dillon to find a woman to keep us company. I tried to tell Harry, but he said I was always finding bogeymen under my bed. He hired that woman, and she said only he could fire her."
It would have been too much to expect Emonda to grow a backbone in the two years he'd been gone. She was so damnably weak and feather-headed. "I'd have thought Suzannah would have shown more spirit. Ah, would have kicked up a dust."
Emonda wiped her eyes. "She thought it was a great joke, just another one of Harry's pranks. And since Mrs. Reardon never interfered with her, Suzannah could not care one way or the other."
"She's still a hoyden then?"
"I am sure you are going to blame me for that too." She sniffled into the cloth.
"Will you stop that blubbering, Emmy! We'll come about."
"Fine for you to say. You'll go back to your silly war, and Suzannah is just a child, but I am ruined. I shall be tarred by the same brush as that woman, and no one shall ever hire me as a governess."
Now she was sobbing in earnest, and each sob added another knot in Carey's stomach. "Will you get that pea-brained notion out of your head? You are underage and I would never let my ward go into service."
"I am not your ward" came as a muffled cry from the handkerchief.
Carey handed his own linen over, thinking Lud, she must need a fresh one by now. "You were my father's ward, now you are mine," he told her firmly. "Surely he would have made some provision for seeing you settled."
"We were going to go up to London when Suzannah was a little older. He set aside a dowry for me." The weeping started anew.
Desperate, Carey promised, "We can still go. That's years away. You'll see, you'll make a fine match with your good lineage, a handsome portion, and your pretty looks. Blondes are all the crack." He tried to avoid looking at her red-stained eyes and splotchy face.
"No, I won't make any kind of match," she wailed, jumping out of her chair. "Who would have me after the Delverson Devils visited here, and then that… woman moved in? I am ruined!" She rushed past him, down the hall, and up the stairs.
"I should be charging you admission for this," Carey told the same footman before inquiring into his sister's whereabouts.
"I couldn't find her, milord, Captain, sir. Miss Delverson is usually out and about the countryside at this time of day."
Carey headed toward the ancient oak where he and his cousins had spent hours building forts and playing at Robin Hood. Suzannah and her playmate Heywood Jeffers had taken over the old climbing tree so Carey thought he'd look there first.
Suzannah and Woody were not climbing, and if the brat's interpretation of Maid Marian was correct, Nottingham Forest would have been a safer place for rich folks.
The two youngsters sprang apart at Carey's bellow and Suzannah, her dark hair, blue eyes, and aristocratic scowl a perfect match to Carey's own, stepped in front of her red-haired, red-faced swain. "We are going to be married," she announced, "and you cannot stop us."
"Watch me" was all Carey said. He'd had an unpleasant enough day with nowhere to vent his frustrations. Young Heywood was the perfect place. Sixteen and stringy, poor Woody could only dangle when Carey picked him up by the collar. Suzannah meanwhile was pounding her brother on the back with a fallen branch and screeching about cutting out his liver and lights. She was a flea to Carey's mastiff, and poor Woody was the rat being shaken into oblivion.
Ned was already bringing Woody's horse around from the stable so Carey booted the squire's son ahead of him. He stopped when they reached the gravel and turned the lad until Heywood could see death staring him in the eyes.
"I suggest you see about finishing your education, Master Jeffers, else I shall see to it for you, and I promise I shall not be such a lenient schoolmaster next time. Do you understand?"
