The Marquess and Miss Davies (3 page)

“Well,” said Lady Davies. “I’ll own that he is quiet. Still—”

“Quiet would be acceptable! But if one asks Lord Brabury a direct question he is more likely to yawn in your face than to provide an answer.”

“I’m sure—”

“I waltzed with him once, did you know? He stopped in the middle of the ballroom floor, frowned at something, and wandered off!”

Carys remembered this occasion. It had been nearly a year ago, at a ball—exactly which, she could not remember—and Isolde had been so incensed she talked of nothing else for days afterward. She had not had occasion to dance with Lord Brabury, herself. He was a pleasant-enough looking young man, tall and a bit lanky, with a mop of reddish hair which, although short, never seemed to be combed in any particular direction.

Cicely Vale—a friend of both Isa and Carys—knew the gentleman’s sister, who had told her that Lord Brabury had few of the interests common to the young bucks of the
ton
, and spent much of his time writing poetry.

“I think we should go to the dinner,” she said suddenly, to the astonishment of both Isa and her mother and, truth be told, to Carys herself.

“This should be amusing,” said Isolde.

* * * *

Neither twin was surprised when Miss Carys Davies found herself seated next to Lord Tobias Brabury at the dinner for Lord Ravelstoke. Lady Davies was a good friend of Lady Dunston, who was their hostess, and Isolde was well-situated as well, both sisters being near the head of the table and between gentleman of high rank. Carys’s conversation was first with Sir Edmund Waverly, who was a jolly septuagenarian with a wealth of funny stories about the Prince Regent, whom he had known as a boy. After the soup, however, she turned her attention to Lord Brabury. She had decided to make a project of the encounter.

“Lord Brabury,” began Carys, “I understand that you are a poet.”

That was all it took.

* * * *

“You will be famous,” said Isolde later that night, as they prepared for bed.

“‘Twas nothing,” replied Carys, grinning at her. “He only required the right woman to take an interest in him.”

“Be careful how you speak. Maman and Lady Brabury will have the two of you married off before tiffin.”

“We discussed that. Neither of us is the least bit interested in the other.”

“No!” Such frank exchange was unheard of.

“Yes. It was a brief digression between an explanation of the difference between a Spenserian stanza and a Spenserian sonnet.”

“Lud.”

“He was quite fascinating on the topic. And he doesn’t write doggerel, can you imagine? He’s really quite good.”

Carys closed her eyes for a minute, then began to declaim.

“My lady

 this is neither you nor I

who waits, careless, for another spring.”

Isolde only shrugged. “‘Tis tolerable, I suppose,” she said. “But I never know if a poem has any worth. Someone must tell me.”

“Well, I think it’s much better than tolerable. We are taking a carriage ride in Green Park the afternoon after next, and he is bringing me an entire volume.”

Isa frowned. “But you said that you were not interested in him.”

“I’m not.”

“But—”

“Cannot a man and woman spend some few hours together, merely as friends?”

Isolde stared at her twin. “No,” she said.

“Pah.”

“And you know it.”

Carys threw herself into an armchair. “I am tired of carriage rides with young gentlemen!” she burst out.

“What are you talking about? You just said— What is Lord Brabury, then?”

“You know what I mean!”

“For once, I do not.”

“With someone with whom I must watch every word, every
word,
Isa, not a single syllable left unparsed for hidden meaning—”

“Yes, I know, but—”

“—not a chance remark allowed—”

“—it’s merely the way—”

“—and I cannot
do
it anymore, I can’t! I do not belong here!” Isolde sat on her bed, silent for a long moment. Carys did not appear ready to burst into tears, or to throw anything—not that she ever had, that was Isa’s own flaw—but she saw a sadness in her twin’s face that was new, and troubling.

“I know,” said Isolde, finally.

Lord Benjamin Harcourt was the fifth son of the Duke of Pressy, a family so old and distinguished that it was rumoured even the Prince Regent found them intimidating. As the duke’s son, Lord Harcourt was firmly ensconced within the highest reaches of the
ton
. He knew everyone, was received everywhere, and was Anthony’s oldest and best friend.

He was also without a feather to fly on, an inevitable consequence of being the fifth—and last—son of a duke profligate even for the type, and brother to several sisters as well, each needing a dowry more generous than the last.

Benjamin Harcourt bore these circumstances without complaint, living on credit and borrowing cheerfully from his friends, most especially the marquess, all of whom knew perfectly well that they would never be repaid.

But it was in circumstances such as Lord Leighton now found himself that Lord Harcourt always proved his worth. Benjamin would know where to find the girl.

* * * *

“Certainly I know them,” said Lord Harcourt. “The twins. Difficult to say which one, of course. Although I might guess—”

“Twins?”

“You know what I mean, old man, born at the same time, look quite alike—” He hiccoughed a bit, and settled deeper into his chair.

“I understand the concept,” said Anthony, patiently. He had only managed to run down Lord Harcourt late in the evening, at White’s, by which time his friend had consumed a great deal of brandy.

“Well, then,” said the duke’s son, waving his hands in the air as if ‘twas all clear. “Miss Isolde and Miss Carys Davies, lately of Pencarrow in Cornwall. I’ve known the family for ages.”

In Benjamin’s case, this could mean anything from a decade to ‘just introduced last Tuesday’, but it hardly mattered. Acquaintance was enough for the entrée of a marquess.

Twins, thought Lord Leighton. He had no personal contact with such individuals—not previously, at any account—although he recalled that one of the former kings of France had been the father of twin daughters. ‘Twas unusual, and perhaps a complication, although Lord Leighton felt certain he would recognize the young woman he had spoken to, no matter how alike her sister.

Benjamin’s head began to droop.

“And where might I find these twins?” asked the marquess.

 “Mmm,” said Lord Harcourt.

“Benjamin.”

“Wha ... what?” said his friend, snorting slightly as his head came up, “Yes?”

“The Davies twins. Where might they be found?”

Lord Harcourt took a long drink of brandy, which seemed to fortify him. “Umm. Well, Miss Isolde Davies might be at any of the better dances, I should think. The Lincolnshire’s ball is any day now, is it not?”

“‘Tis weeks away, I believe.”

“Really? How odd.”

“Both sisters would attend the ball, of course,” said Lord Leighton.

Unexpectedly, Benjamin shook his head. “Possibly not. If you wish to meet Miss Carys Davies I’d try a lecture at the Royal Society.”

“The
Royal Society
?”

 “Lovely girl,” said Benjamin. “She adores the lectures.”

The marquess did not attempt to extract any more information from Lord Harcourt, who had now sunk so deeply into the overstuffed armchair that ‘twould be a chore to extract him later, as Anthony had good reason to know. Besides, there was no real need, as he had already heard enough.

His
young woman,
his
twin, was Carys.

Lord Leighton could not explain how he was so sure. Carys. The Royal Society. It simply had the feeling of something always known.

Was she truly a bluestocking? He knew few ladies who would willingly attend a lecture when a dance was to be had in its stead, not to mention that many of his friends believed that the Royal Society’s halls should be reserved for gentlemen. Lord Pollifax grew quite heated on the subject, as Anthony recalled.

The fairer sex could not be admitted to have much reason, let alone an interest in the sciences. If they were acknowledged reasonable, of what could the men complain?

The marquess found this latter attitude terribly short-sighted. The male of the species, on his own, was a bore. Anthony decided that he was prepared not to mind about the young lady’s partiality to intellectual pursuits. He preferred the out-of-doors himself, but for the chance of seeing Miss Davies again, he would willingly listen to some old savant prose on about galvanometers or some such.

Eyes of sapphire blue.

Dear Lord, thought Carys. The first speaker of the night could only with great charity be called rather dry. A Dr Johnson, of Bristol, who seemed to be extraordinarily interested in two species of what sounded like—but according to his researches were not in truth—a type of leech.

“I am of the opinion,” opined Dr Johnson, “that the
Hirudo circulans
described by Mr Sowerby—”

“I don’t believe,” said Isolde, at her side, “that a duller man exists in all of England.”

“Shh,” whispered Carys.

“—and the
Hirudo crenata
by the Rev. William Kirby—”

“‘Tis unfortunate we cannot somehow bottle this speech, and provide it to those who suffer from insomnia.”

“
Shh
. You asked—”

“—to come along. Yes, I remember.” Isolde was silent for several moments. “I can see visiting the Royal Society once,” she added. “It’s the twice I cannot comprehend.”

Carys sighed. She been surprised by Isa’s suggestion that she accompany her sister in the first place. ‘Twas not from any interest in natural philosophy, she was sure. There were a great number of gentlemen here, of course, but her sister had no difficulties on that account, and dancing was much more to Isolde’s taste.

Dr Johnson’s presentation, which included a lengthy digression in Latin, drew finally and mercifully to its close, with much exclamation over his choice of
Glossopora
as the new genus name. The group decamped to the adjoining room for the interval, crowding around the tables where a selection of drinks and food awaited them. Carys, well aware that women were tolerated more than enjoyed at these meetings, stood to one side and attempted to make herself as inconspicuous as possible, but Isolde was having none of it. She hooked her arm in Carys’s and pulled them both forward.

“Let us see what the gentlemen enjoy,” she said, eyeing the selection of breads, savories, and thinly sliced meats. “Well, I must say it’s better than Almack’s.”

“A low standard,” said Carys.

“True.” Isolde selected a small baguette and began to tear it into pieces on her plate. “So who is he?”

“Who is who?”

“This paragon of masculine intelligence that you are here to observe.”

Of course, thought Carys. Of course Isa would guess. And lying to her twin was pointless.

“Mr Jonathan Torvald. He is speaking next.”

Her sister nodded. “Well,” she said, “One can only hope that he commands a more interesting topic than the leech.”

* * * *

The man was handsome enough, thought Isa, after Mr Torvald had spoken for several minutes. But only just. Slim, of middling height, and with thin brown hair carefully arranged in curls around his face, he approached the dandy in dress.

Carys watched him with a smile, which would have been flattering to the gentleman if Isolde had not seen a certain fixed quality in her sister’s expression.

She wants to like him, thought Isa. But cannot quite.

Why?

The chairman had introduced Mr Jonathan Torvald as a botanist of some repute, and as such he spent his days—and weeks and months, as far as Isa could tell—tramping about the backcountry of England, looking for rare flowers of some type that she had not bothered to make note of.

Perhaps that was the attraction. Carys imagines him as her way out of London.

Isolde liked trees and flowers and suchlike as much as the next person—they were pretty, and often pleasingly fragrant—but she had never shared her sister’s passion for the out-of-doors. A dance, or the theater, or a stroll down Bond Street, looking at all the newest hats on display was Isa’s idea of a day well-spent. Not that she was flighty, nor shallow in her interests overall. Isolde took a keen interest in the politics of her day, and of the twins, she was the more likely to argue with Talfryn over reform of the Poor Laws.

She simply enjoyed what entertainments town had to offer.

“And as one might expect, the weathering which we see on the exposed rock has led to a less suitable environment for—”

The botanist spoke in a smooth, self-satisfied manner that Isolde distrusted. The presentation, or as much as she cared to pay attention to it, concerned his latest discovery, and Torvald was describing it in a manner suggesting that here was true genius at work.

 Lud. And Carys would want her to meet him during the next interval, and Isolde must be prepared to show a polite interest. ‘Twas Isa’s experience that men assumed the interest of young women, even when they’d done nothing to earn it.

At least one could hope that the interval would be soon. Miss Davies suspected that the fine gentlemen of natural philosophy required the regular application of food and drink to sustain their work.

* * * *

The situation would be comical, thought Carys. If only ‘twas happening to someone else.

The opportunity had never previously arisen to apprise Mr Torvald of the existence of a twin sister; such a personal note would have been inappropriate to their relationship as it presently stood. He had borne the evening’s revelation with equanimity, and had asked none of the questions that so annoyed them, but—

Was the man blind?

The introduction had occurred not five minutes previously, Mr Torvald had turned away for a minute or two to greet a friend, and upon returning his attention to the Misses Davies, he was clearly at sea. Even though she and her sister were not dressed at all alike, nor were they wearing their hair in a similar style. Carys was frustrated and embarrassed. How could he not recall that she was wearing blue muslin with cap sleeves and Isa was in the ivory sarcenet?