Wildblossom (3 page)

April 1902

"Do you know, Manypenny, quite often of late I find it difficult to breathe," Geoffrey Weston, Marquess of Sandhurst, remarked to his valet, who preferred the title Gentleman's Gentleman.

"Indeed, sir?" Manypenny replied through lips that seemed not to move at all. "Are you ill?"

Geoff, in the act of slipping on his charcoal-gray cutaway coat, looked searchingly at the old man who towered over other people. Manypenny rarely betrayed any humor, no matter how dry, yet Geoff was certain that it must be present given his constant deadpan remarks. "Don't worry, old fellow, I'm not ill—only terminally
bored."

"I believe you have mentioned that previously, my lord."

It was like conversing with one of those hulking great statues in the lobby of Parliament
,
Geoff thought. Sighing, he regarded himself in the cheval mirror that was tucked into a corner of his dressing room. His clothing fit, as always, to perfection. Tonight he was off to the Haymarket for a comedy featuring Cyril Maude and Winifred Emery, a married couple thought highly entertaining by everyone else. Geoff fought an impulse to yawn just contemplating the hours that lay ahead. Even his various lady friends were tedious in their predictability, and there weren't enough mens' clubs and bottles of champagne in London to elevate Geoffrey Weston's mood.

He met his own gaze in the mirror and decided that even his face was boring. For years relatives had declared that he was the image of Andrew Weston, the third Marquess of Sandhurst, who had lived during the sixteenth century. Paintings of the fellow bore out the truth of this observation, for Geoff was strikingly handsome, just like his Tudor relative who had been independent enough to purchase this very town house on the Thames for his private use, apart from the mansion where his father, the Duke of Aylesbury, lived. Geoff, too, needed his privacy, for he had two parents who were very much alive and going on at him at every available opportunity..

Manypenny was holding out an engraved silver-spined comb. Sandhurst ran it through his dark hair and searched in vain for some flaw in his reflection. Above the high, winged collar and black tie, his face was tanned, handsome, and shadowed with cynicism. His great eyes were liquid-brown, like chocolate, and his mouth was chiseled. The aristocratic curve of Geoff's cheekbones along with his penchant for athletic pastimes ensured that he would keep his good looks deep into old age.

"What would you think if I grew a beard?" he asked.

"I?" Manypenny drew the vowel out. "I imagine that I would wonder why you would endeavor to cover so fine a face, my lord. If you were cursed with a double chin, or no chin at all..."

Bored already with this conversation, Geoff gathered his cane, gloves, and a black coat with a waist-length cape, and took his leave. "Don't wait up for me tonight, Manypenny," he called back from the corridor. "Perhaps I shall run away and become a gypsy...."

* * *

"What a magnificent evening it's been, don't you agree, Sandhurst?"

Geoff could scarcely hear his friend, Sir Charles Lipton-Lyons, above the din at the Cafe Royal. The after-theater crowd was lively, fueled by champagne and flirtations. Geoff and Charles were not alone, but their female companions had gone off to the powder room and seemed to have gotten lost.

For his own part, he wished he were home in bed, but since that was not an option, he drained a glass of champagne and signaled the waiter for yet another bottle.

"Honestly, Charles, I am mystified by your standards for amusement. What, exactly, has happened this evening to inspire an adjective like 'magnificent'?"

Lipton-Lyons, a stocky, pink-cheeked young man with a mustache that curled up at the ends, whacked Sandhurst on the shoulder. "Egad but you are sardonic, old chap! Cheer up! What's happened to sink you this much further into your mire of disaffection?"

"You ought not ask." A small, grudging smile worked at Geoff's mouth.

Charles was one of the few people he actually liked and trusted, for they had known each other since Oxford and had made their grand tour of Europe together, extending it to a three-year revel that nearly ended with the two of them marrying sisters on an island off the coast of Spain. Geoff valued their friendship, even though they had recently passed into their thirties and ought to be drifting apart.

"Very well, I'll tell you." His eyes hardened as he stared off into the distance. "My dear mother informed me this morning that I've run out of reprieves. She and Father mean to announce tomorrow that their son—that's me, I fear—is betrothed to Lady Clementine Beech. I don't need to remind you that this marriage has been planned for me since the day of Clemmie's birth, when I was nine years old. You'd think that such wheezy traditions as arranged marriages would be extinct by now, wouldn't you? Probably are, except for this one. My esteemed father, the duke, insists that the Westons and the Beeches have been longing to join their massive land holdings in Yorkshire for
eons,
but there was never a suitable match until now...."

Charles Lipton-Lyons had drawn his gilt chair next to Geoff's and turned his ear close enough to make out his friend's speech over the clamor that filled the Cafe Royal. Charles's brain was quite fuzzy from consuming too much champagne too quickly, but most of what Geoff was saying was hardly news.

They had first spoken of this unofficial betrothal one long ago night when they'd drunk too much ale at The Bear in Oxford. Since Charles's parents were relentlessly modern, he'd found it hard to imagine such a situation could be serious.

He knew Clementine. She was a definite English type—raised on horseback and looking rather like a well-bred mare herself: angular, toothy, and cursed with straight hair unsuited to the upswept Gibson Girl style that was all the rage.

"Clemmie's a good sort," Charles offered now. "And it's not as if you're prone to falling in love in any case... You could leave Lady Clem in the country with her horses."

"Someone would have to get Clemmie with child, and logic dictates that it would have to be me, though I really cannot imagine..." Geoff's tone was chilly, then bemused as he turned his expressive brown eyes to meet Charles's.

"I could get you a riding crop to pack for your honeymoon. It might be just the thing."

He arched an eyebrow and gave him a dark look. "Don't misunderstand, though, I do see the sense in it. Father and I may not be close, but I'm aware that his health is failing, and I am not so selfish that I wouldn't like to please him. And, as you pointed out, I don't care much for
love,
so why not have a marriage of convenience? I could go on dallying with actresses and we'd live separate lives..."

Nodding slowly, Charles waited for the other shoe to drop. "There certainly are positive aspects, no doubt about it...."

"Oh, shut up, coward. Such a life only sounds tolerable because because I'm bored to the back teeth with my present existence. What would it matter?" He gave a harsh sigh. "Still, I'd like one last fling before I do the manly thing before half of London in Westminster Abbey." Geoff gazed into the distance, thinking. "I find myself longing for a great
adventure."

"I take it you aren't referring to a few months spent immersed in debauchery, carrying a bottle and gambling wildly and keeping at least one woman in your bed at all times."

"Didn't we wallow in that trough a decade ago, old boy? No, I mean a
creative
adventure. Perhaps I ought to go and live among the bedouins or sail off to Tahiti like Paul Gauguin."

"Paul who?"

"Never mind. D'you think I might have a talent for art? My ancestor, the one I resemble, was quite an accomplished painter."

"I've a notion that you're drunk, Geoff," Charles decided, "but so am I. What about Wyoming?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Wy-o-ming,"
he enunciated. "It's a state in the western region of America."

"Whatever possessed you to mention it?"

"You said you wanted an original adventure, and I just happened to speak to my cousin, Trevor. He's friendly with Buffalo Bill Cody." Warming to the subject, Charles picked up the bottle of champagne just delivered by the waiter, got to his feet and cried, "Come on, then. Let's go outside and walk and discuss this subject properly. Those bits of fluff don't care for us!"

Geoff stubbed out his cigar, rose, and linked arms with his friend. "Lead on to Wyoming!"

Swaying slightly, they wove through the crush of tables, emerged onto foggy Glasshouse Street and leaned against a street lamp. Charles took a swig of cold champagne.

"Now then, about Wyoming. Sandhurst, you surely haven't forgotten the performance of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show that we attended in our youth—at age sixteen, I'd imagine. Remember? An amazing experience! I had such dreams of seeing the real West for myself one day—if it still exists."

"Well, it's hardly a new concept, Charles. British greenhorns, or whatever they call us, have been stumbling about the West since the Indian wars ended." He pulled his friend upright and started off in the general direction of Lipton-Lyons's lodgings. "What about your cousin? Is he going there?"

"No. Well, perhaps. But he had dinner with Cody himself when he was in New York last autumn. Cody's fortunes have improved so much that he now has his own
town!
My cousin was quite caught up in Cody's description of the place. You know—he's trying to persuade people to move there, or at least visit. Seems that the town is attracting a colorful assortment of citizens!"

"What do they call it?"

"Call it? Why, Cody, of course! The scenery, according to the old showman himself, is spectacular beyond belief. The town is growing, Buffalo Bill is constructing a hotel this year, and one can have a nearby ranch and spend one's days on horseback or fishing and generally enjoy paradise."

Suddenly Geoff stopped on the walkway and gripped his friend's arms, his handsome features illumined by the fog-shrouded street lamp. "Let's go there."

Charles could only goggle in response.

"I mean it! What is life for, if not to seize adventure? I have a confession to make—I do remember attending the Wild West Show. Vividly. Afterward, there was a party for Cody and the stars of the show, and my family attended. Annie Oakley was there, and that fearsome Chief Red Shirt, and we were invited to visit the Indian village and the stables...." For a moment the Marquess of Sandhurst looked almost boyish. "The sort of life they portray in that show is hugely appealing. What a sense of
freedom
one could enjoy! No one would care what you were wearing or what you owned or whether you were producing an heir!" Filled with an enthusiasm he hadn't felt for years, Geoff talked on until they reached Mount Street and the steps leading to Charles's stylish flat. Again Geoff grasped his friend's arm, demanding, "When shall we leave? There's a ship Monday, I believe."

Looking faintly ill, Charles replied, "See here, oughtn't you give this some serious,
sober
thought? It's not as if you're proposing a jaunt to Brighton for the weekend, after all!"

"I didn't propose it—
you
did!"

"Well, perhaps, but shouldn't you speak to your parents first?"

"I damned well don't need anyone's permission to go to Wyoming! I'm thirty-one years old and can come and go as I please. If I agree to marry Lady Clem upon my return, that should be enough for 'em." He waved an elegant hand in the mist while the bells of Grosvenor Chapel struck three. "It's all very simple."

"Perhaps," Charles replied doubtfully.

"I'll see you in Rotten Row tomorrow and we'll make firm plans. You aren't looking very well at the moment, Charles. Why don't you go inside to bed before you do something unseemly."

Glad to obey, the young man turned back at his front door. "But Sandhurst, how'll you get home?"

"I'll walk!" His grin flashed in the darkness. "I vow, I haven't felt like this in ages—quite possibly not since we attended the Wild West Show in 1887 and I was granted a hair-raising ride in that fabulous red Deadwood stagecoach. You're a genius, Charles!"

Lipton-Lyons remained on the top step, watching his friend fairly swagger off into the night. It occurred to him that he might have created a monster, but there was nothing to be done about it now except go to bed.

* * *

Queen Victoria had died early in 1901, and now her subjects were adjusting to a new king and queen. Change crept in from every direction. Fashions were different now that the moral climate set by Queen Victoria had softened. Great mansions were being sold and turned into clubs or blocks of flats, and new inventions like the motorcar and wireless telegraph were no longer so novel. Yet the British clung to their traditions and resisted change. This morning, as Geoffrey Weston rode his magnificent gelding, Thor, toward Hyde Park, he noticed how few motor cars were yet in evidence on the streets. Carriages and hansom cabs were still favored, with coachmen decked out in top boots and footmen in livery.

Geoff rode through the Albert Gate into the park, which was crowded with riders and light carriages. On this mild and fragrant April morning, Rotten Row was thick with the fashionable set, and Geoff had to search for Charles. When he spotted him near Hyde Park Corner, he raised his hand.