Chapter Five
“Why are you so glum? You have not smiled since you entered the house.” Clara posed the question to her sister after seeking her out in her bedchamber that night.
Dinner had proven a trial, with her grandmother issuing edicts regarding the days ahead, and Emilia and Theo nodding like schoolchildren. The dowager dismissed out of hand Clara’s own objections to the demands the plans made on her time.
Emilia threw herself on her bed. “Grandmother wants me to meet Stratton. Since he is here in town, we followed him.”
“You have not yet been introduced?”
“Theo keeps inviting him to visit, only to be put off.” She pouted. “It is embarrassing to be thrown at him like this when it appears he would prefer to avoid me. Since I would like to avoid him too, I wish they would stop this pursuit of him. I realize he is a duke, but I found him rather frightening in appearance when he was on that terrace. Nor do I think it is fair that I am being offered to him like this before I ever have a Season.”
Clara sat next to her and embraced her with one arm. “That does seem unfair.” Emilia was lovely, and if given that Season, would have dozens of admirers hoping to win her hand. Clara had fond memories of her own first Season. She had not been looking for a husband, but she had loved all the planning and then all the social activities and balls. She had enjoyed the few stolen kisses that came her way too.
“Now I am here in town and have to sit everything out while all my friends go to balls,” Emilia complained. “It is one thing to remain in mourning down in the country and miss out. It is another to all but hear all the fun through the windows while I sit in this house, wearing black.”
“Perhaps we can convince Grandmother to allow you to attend a few smaller events. A garden party or two. And you can receive friends here. If you are allowed to meet with Stratton, why not other young men?”
Emilia’s eyes lit with hope. “Do you think she will agree? Perhaps she will allow me to have a new dress or two made, not that I want more black dresses, but at least I will be going out to the shops then.”
“I will try to convince her to permit something other than black for you at least. It has been past six months now. Other colors, simple and subdued to be sure, can be permitted for a girl, it seems to me.”
Emilia threw her arms around Clara and kissed her cheek. “If you can obtain even that small reprieve, I will be so grateful.”
“You write to your friends and let them know you are here and can both pay calls and receive. As for Stratton—you are not obligated to marry anyone if you do not want to. I hope you know that.”
The joy left Emilia as quickly as it had emerged. “I have never been good at defying Grandmother. She frightens me even more than the duke does.”
Of course she did. The dowager intimidated grown men. If not for Stratton’s resistance, Emilia would be affianced already.
“Perhaps Stratton will never visit us here either,” Emilia said wistfully.
Clara doubted that. Grandmother would not be put off now, no matter what stratagems the duke attempted. Unless he flatly refused to continue this peacemaking dance.
It would be best for all of them if he decided to do that.
* * *
“Are you going to tell me where we are going?” Langford asked the question while he and Adam walked their horses along Bond Street. “When you urged me to join you, I assumed you would explain why and where by now.”
Adam had crossed Langford’s path three blocks before. That had been no accident. Nor had been his neglect to mention their destination.
“I promised it would be diverting, and it will be.”
“I must insist you reveal all. I do not think we are visiting some shop or heading toward a typical afternoon diversion.”
Adam turned off Bond Street. “I will confess why I waylaid you, but you must first promise not to abandon me.”
“What are you up to, Stratton?”
“I am calling on Marwood.”
“No. That pup? Whatever for? I thought you were his sworn enemy, through inheritance.”
“He thinks we should make amends and be friends. He has been insistent about it. He keeps inviting me to visit and followed me up to town to corner me. Yesterday he paid a call while I was out. So I wrote and finally agreed to return the honor.”
Langford continued to pace his horse forward. At least he had not rejected this visit out of hand. “I suppose he is afraid you are going to challenge him over that ancestral slight. He has most likely been soiling his smallclothes since hearing you are back.”
“I would never duel over insults fifty years old.”
He got a sharp glance from Langford for that. “So you are agreeable to accepting his olive branch? My, that is good of you.”
Adam ignored his suspicious tone. “Well, I have heard he has a lovely sister.”
“You must mean Lady Emilia. She was a beautiful child, that is true, but no one has seen her in close to a year. I expect she is passing on this Season due to the earl’s death. But, yes, it is anticipated that she has turned out more than well. Surely you do not intend to make amends to the point of courting her?”
“I rather thought you might want to.”
Langford stopped his horse. “If that was meant as a joke, I am not laughing.”
Adam grinned. “I am. Stop being so worried. One would think it were possible to sneak the nuptial noose on you without your knowing it.”
“There are a few mothers who are giving that their best effort.” He started his horse again. “Forgive me for lack of humor. I am feeling hounded. So we are calling on one of your family’s enemies, with the main goal of ogling his sister.”
“That sums it up neatly.”
Langford shrugged. “Why didn’t you say so?”
Their ride took them to the door of Marwood’s town house on Portman Square. Adam waited until servants took their horses and they were at the door before speaking again.
“Ah, I forgot to mention it. His grandmother was with him when he called yesterday. I expect we will see her too.”
Langford closed his eyes. He looked like a man praying for salvation. “I have assiduously avoided that harpy for almost a decade, Stratton. I may kill you for this.”
“You would not have wanted me to face her alone, would you?”
“I would have sent you on your way and collected your remains after she was done with you. Hell, let us go in, and hope that she has fed on someone else already today.”
* * *
“My lady.”
Clara’s maid Jocelyn whispered the address in a nervous tone.
“What is it?” Clara responded ever so calmly, although she wanted to express great displeasure. She had told Jocelyn she was to be left alone. Clearly and strongly told her that. Yet here the maid was, interrupting.
“A footman came to the door. He said your grandmother requires you in the library.”
Clara set her head in her hands. She looked down at the surface of her writing desk. The printed pages of the journal, received from Althea yesterday, waited her proofing. They needed to be returned with corrections to the printer tomorrow.
She had hoped to be done by yesterday afternoon. However, ever since her family had taken residence here, there had been one interruption after another. Those from Emilia she did not mind. Those when her grandmother demanded her attendance did.
Not that Grandmamma required her for anything important. She merely wanted to talk and needed an audience. Clara had put some of that time to good use, at least. She had obtained agreement that Emilia should have a new dress or two and be allowed to pay calls.
Yesterday morning, unfortunately, they had engaged in a row when she refused her grandmother’s edict that she join the dowager and Theo when they paid a call on Stratton in the afternoon. She had no trouble marshaling a list of reasons why she should not do that.
She had a meeting with Althea planned, for one thing. She thought they would look ridiculous if the entire family paid that call, for another. Finally, she did not want to encourage the duke to think she was in any way in agreement with this peace mission, let alone in his peculiar plan for achieving harmony between their families.
Not that she could explain any of that to her grandmother, so she had simply been defiant. She wondered how Grandmamma would make her pay for that.
“He conveyed that the countess was most stern on the matter, my lady. He said important guests have called, and she said you must come down.”
“Important guests” could mean anyone whom Grandmamma deigned to receive.
She looked down at her simple dress. “I will change into my black bombazine with the jet beads, Jocelyn, if they are so damned important.”
Jocelyn flushed at the curse and scurried to the dressing room. Clara followed, regretting the lapse. She really had to stop doing that.
Fifteen minutes later she entered the library and saw that the footman had not exaggerated. Even by Grandmamma’s high standards their guests were important.
Stratton had returned yesterday’s call. Nor was he alone. Another duke, Langford, accompanied him. Stratton, Langford, and Theo stood upon her arrival. During greetings, Emilia caught her eye and gave a desperate look.
“The dukes have been regaling us with descriptions of Lady Montclair’s ball last night,” her grandmother said, once they all sat again. “I daresay we are enjoying it more in the retelling than anyone did who was there.”
“I should have liked to be there so I would know for sure,” Emilia murmured.
Langford, a handsome man with brilliant blue eyes and dark curls that turned his cropped hair a little wild, regarded her with sympathy. “You did not miss too much, Lady Emilia. You will learn soon enough that balls are all much the same.”
“My grandmother has agreed that even though our mourning has not ended, Emilia can be excused if she attends a few smaller events. Garden parties and such. That would be acceptable, don’t you agree?” Clara deliberately did not so much as glance at her grandmother, since she had not yet raised this idea with her.
“I do not see why not. Let us know which she will attend, and Stratton and I will be sure to attend as well and speak with her there.”
“How kind of you both.” If two dukes spoke with Emilia at a party, no one would talk much about whether a girl in mourning should have come. “We will be sure to let you know. Won’t we, Grandmamma?”
“Indeed.”
Untold levels quaked beneath the surface gratitude of that one-word response. Clara heard disapproval of her boldness, and pending threats. Emilia, however, only beamed with delight that she would not be left out of absolutely everything.
Her sister looked beautiful today, but then she always did. The sun filtering in the windows made her blond hair all but spark with lights and also flattered her dewy complexion. Langford kept looking her way. Not that Langford would do for Emilia, any more than the other duke here might. Langford was known for a wildness that more than matched that of his rakish hair. Charming as sin, he would surely break the heart of any woman he married.
Clara tried not to see Stratton, but he sat just to the right of his friend and managed to invade her vision anyway. He barely looked at Emilia at all, something Grandmamma was sure to notice. Clara hoped that Grandmamma did not realize whom he looked at instead.
It was not as if he stared at her. Just often that dark gaze settled on her, to the point of making her self-conscious. She understood what Emilia meant about finding him frightening, only that word did not really fit the response he evoked. Rather, she found his attention forcing memories on her, of his standing too close, and almost kissing her, and saying things too intimate.
“The day is fair,” her grandmother announced. “Clara, why don’t you take your sister and the gentlemen to the garden, to enjoy the breeze and sun? Your brother and I will join you soon.”
So it was that she led the way out the French windows to the terrace.
* * *
Adam arranged it that by the time they stepped onto the terrace, he stood beside Lady Clara and Langford accompanied Lady Emilia.
Langford could charm any woman of any age without trying. It was simply his nature. Some kings were born to rule, and Langford had been born to seduce.
He restrained himself to the extent he could because Lady Emilia was a young girl, but those blue eyes still pierced and that smile still cajoled. Lady Emilia became a flustered mess of giggles and blushes by the time they reached the gardens.
Lady Clara missed none of it. “Shrewd of you to bring him,” she said to Adam. “Otherwise my grandmother might have interpreted your call as courting, and indicative of your agreement to her idea about a marriage.”
“She would have been correct, of course, but only in error as to the lady. We will not explain that yet, however. It will be our secret for a while.”
“I wish you would stop speaking like that, when you know it will be a secret forever because I will never accept. There is no reason for me to.”
“There is good reason. Many reasons. It will be our secret while I show you what they are.”
Up ahead, Langford must have told some joke because Emilia’s laughter pealed through the air.
“I hope he does not get any ideas about her,” Clara said, narrowing her eyes. “He will never do.”
“He has never shown interest in young girls, so I would not worry.”
“Are the two of you good friends?”
“We have been close friends since we were schoolboys.” He laughed, quietly. “I forget how little you know about me sometimes.”
“Your family did not exist in my family’s view, so I never noticed you or with whom you were friends.”
“Never noticed me? How wounding. Never? Not once?” He gave her a direct, teasing look.
She felt her face flush, because of course she had noticed him before he left for France, during her first seasons. Who could not? His handsome face and smoldering aura made him stand out. Once, at a ball, she sensed an odd calm in the ballroom, a spot of stillness. It had been him, acting like the center of a vortex around which the chaos of the assembly swirled.
He had seen her watching him, she suddenly remembered now. He had noticed her noticing. He had guessed, she suspected, that she did not look upon him entirely as an enemy in that unexpected moment.
He now dipped his head closer to hers. “I do not think we did not exist for your family. I think we were much discussed. Not with you or by you, but your father and his mother. Am I correct?”
His voice, breath, and closer proximity made her nervous. She checked to see that her sister had not gotten so far ahead as to offer no sanctuary. “At times.”
“Around Waterloo?” His voice softened. “Or in the months after?”
Her mind swept back to that time, years ago, as if sent there by a spell he cast. Conversations crowded her memory all at once, like so many voices chattering in layered unison. She heard her father, so clearly that it pained her, but his words were obscured by other voices talking over and around him. Then she glimpsed him, sharply, slamming his hand down on a writing table in the library.
“No,” she lied. “Not around then. Not that I remember, at least.” She did not know why she refused to tell him. Perhaps because of the way he watched her expression. As if it mattered to him how she responded. Mattered too much.
Up ahead, Langford stopped his stroll with Emilia. He waited for them to catch up. Emilia appeared heady with delight. She kept looking up at Langford like he mesmerized her.
“Oh, dear,” Clara murmured.
“Do not worry. I will throw more appropriate men at her,” Stratton said. “Safe ones, who are not dangerous in any way. She will quickly forget an afternoon’s infatuation.”
* * *
“Now, that was an odd call.” Langford offered the opinion as he and Adam turned their horses onto Bond Street.
“How so?”
“How so, he asks innocently. You know how so. If I did not know better, I would say that you brought me so that you could throw me at that girl, despite your assurances. Well, I won’t have it. And if the dowager is foolish enough to risk her granddaughter’s virtue with me, she will have to put the girl in line behind the other girls whose mothers are also so careless.”
“The intention was not to throw you at the girl but to avoid having me thrown at her. I had never met her before and did not want her family thinking a mere social call meant more than that.”
“I am so happy that you found me convenient to your purpose. The next time, please give the honor to Brentworth.”
“He would have frightened her to where she could not speak a word. Nor would he have been so careless as to allow me to risk his name being connected to hers.”
“You are saying you chose me because I am an accommodating idiot. I do not want my name linked either. If it is, if Marwood starts rumors, I swear I will—”
“Here is what you should do. Call on them again in several days—”
“Do I look mad to you? We are talking about the Countess of Marwood. She who ruins women for fun and humiliates men as a game. I may survive this Season if I do battle only with the mothers now armed against me. I will surely fall if I must also watch my flank from this woman.”
“I had forgotten how dramatic you are. Hear me out. Call again in several days, but do as I did. Bring another with you. Your brother, for example.”
“Harry? He will bore the girl to death.”
“She is very young. Calm, studious Harry will not overwhelm her, and she will have a friend in town. With time, who knows what might happen. He will have a clear field, after all.”
Langford thought that over. “It might work. Did you take lessons in France in matchmaking?”
“I had lessons in all kinds of things. Now, I must stop here for a spell.” He swung off his horse. “You are welcome to go on your way.”
Langford looked down at the shop where Adam tied up his horse. “You are buying jewelry?”
“A small bauble.”
Langford dismounted. “For whom?”
“For my lady fair. I will see her a few more times before gifting her with it, but it is time to choose something.” He entered the shop, with Langford on his heels.
“Now I am confused, Stratton. You just advised that I throw my brother at her, and you all but ignored her today—” He stopped in his tracks. “Oh, hell. It isn’t the girl at all, but the older one, isn’t it? Tell me I am wrong, because it would be the worst match ever devised by hell.”
Adam asked the clerk to bring out the pearl earbobs. Langford elbowed next to him at the counter. “If I am correct, pearls are the wrong choice. Pearls are modest, discreet, and conventional. That harridan begs for something bright and unexpected. Something that declares she bows to no man. Something that—”
“I am beginning to think you do not like her.”
“No man does much, Stratton. The way she thumbs her nose at every suitor hardly encourages generosity in return.” He gestured to the clerk to take away the tray of pearls. “Bring out your rubies instead, my good man. The bigger and more outré, the better.”