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So the golden-haired Scotswoman was called Annabel.
But the duke shook his head. ‘It’ll never fly. Begging your pardon, Ardmore, but Annabel has a penchant for rich and titled Englishmen. She’d be an uncomfortable wife for a penniless Scottish earl, and that’s the truth of it.’
Felton opened his mouth but Ewan caught his eye and he closed it.
‘Ah, a dowry problem,’ Mayne said thoughtfully.
The waiter returned with a decanter of the Tobermary, which was just as good as Ewan remembered.
‘Do you like poetry?’ Mayne asked.
It seemed an odd question. ‘Not particularly.’
‘Then Miss Pythian-Adams won’t do. She’s got a hefty dowry, but I’ve heard she’s memorised the whole of a Shakespeare play. At any rate, she does drop bits and pieces into conversation. Maitland used to complain when they were engaged that she made him read aloud the whole of Henry VIII. Apparently it took an afternoon.’
‘No,’ Ewan said. ‘That won’t do.’
‘So that’s why you’re in London.’ Rafe stared at him over a mere inch of liquid left in his glass.
‘To find a wife,’ Ewan agreed. ‘As I told you earlier, Your Grace.’ The duke was definitely showing his whisky now.
‘Sometimes I think that I need one of those too. She could take care of all these wards of mine. They’re going to have me in Bedlam.’
‘Don’t be a fool,’ Mayne said to him. ‘No one would marry a drunken sot like yourself unless she wanted your title and money.’
Somewhat to Ewan’s surprise, Rafe took no umbrage at his friend’s harsh assessment.
‘You’re probably right,’ he said, with a yawn that appeared likely to break his jaw. ‘I have to go to bed. Come up with a few names for Ardmore here, Mayne.’
‘Miss Tarn,’ Mayne said, his eyes narrowed in thought. ‘She’s quite beautiful; her dowry is more than adequate; by all reports, she’s an expert horsewoman.’
‘My wife says she’s in love with a Frenchman named Soubiran,’ Felton said. ‘Her father doesn’t approve of the connection, but Miss Tarn has dug in her heels.’
‘In that case, Lady Cecily Severy,’ Mayne said. ‘Eldest daughter of the Duke of Claire. Not bad-looking and the dowry is obviously magnificent.’
‘This is her third season,’ Felton put in.
‘She does lisp,’ Mayne admitted. ‘But her dowry surely trumps the lisp.’
‘She pretends that she’s approximately five years old,’ Felton said crisply. ‘Talks in baby talk to her suitors. Puts some men off.’
‘I would consider myself one of them,’ Ewan said.
‘Third choice, then,’ Mayne said. ‘Lady Griselda Willoughby. She’s a young, beautiful widow, with a large estate and a cheerful disposition. She thinks she doesn’t want to marry, but in fact she would make a happy wife and mother. And her reputation is impeccable.’
Silence followed this suggestion. Ewan thought Lady Griselda sounded just fine. He nodded.
‘Lady Griselda is Mayne’s sister,’ Felton said.
Ewan looked at Mayne. ‘Your sister?’
Mayne nodded. ‘Mind you, she’s been courted by many a man, and none of them has had the least success.’ He eyed Ewan narrowly. ‘But I have a feeling that you might have more luck than most. She’s only thirty, and there’s more than enough time for children.’
‘He doesn’t have an estate,’ Rafe said, his voice turned to a dark-toned growl by exhaustion and liquor.
‘She doesn’t need it. Her jointure alone was excellent, but Willoughby’s estate is also extensive.’
Felton nodded. ‘I would agree with your assessment of Lady Griselda’s holdings.’
‘She says she doesn’t want to marry again,’ Mayne said. ‘But I’m fond of her.’
Ewan translated that into a typical English understatement of a loyal love for his sister. Lord, but Englishmen were strange. Here was a man who looked like a rake-hell if he ever saw one, and yet…it seemed he was truly being offered a wife.
‘I would be honoured to meet Lady Griselda,’ he said.
‘Good, that’s settled,’ Rafe said, with another yawn. ‘I’m off. Ardmore, would you like me to drop you at Grillon’s, or will you find your own way home?’
Ewan rose and bowed to the two men.
‘Perhaps we could talk about your stables at some point,’ Felton said.
Ewan recognised the spark in his eye as being that of a man with an abiding passion for horses. ‘I would be delighted,’ he said, bowing again.
Mayne rose in turn. ‘Have you been invited to Countess Mitford’s garden party tomorrow afternoon?’
‘Yes.’ Ewan hesitated. ‘I thought not to go. I found the last garden party painfully tedious.’
‘This won’t be. Countess Mitford models herself on the ancient Renaissance families of Italy. She holds only one party a year, and it’s not to be missed. I shall escort my sister.’
‘Come along,’ Rafe said grumpily. ‘Aged whisky gives one the same headache as its younger brethren, damn it.’
Ewan bowed again.
Four (#ulink_b31cc893-d5f7-5c53-b364-46c7a8c1805f)
Everything had changed since Tess married. For years, the four of them would curl up in bed, huddling under threadworn blankets in the winter, wearing chemises because they had no nightgowns…talking. Josie was the baby, who sometimes sounded the eldest of all of them because of her biting wit. Imogen next youngest, with her passion for Draven Maitland that had thrived for years before he even noticed her existence. Annabel was two years older than Imogen and had spent her adolescence managing the finances of the household, exhausted by the burden of it and tired, bone-tired, by the poverty of their father’s house. She had talked incessantly of London, of silks and satins, and of a man who would never make her count a penny. And Tess was the eldest…Tess, who had worried about all of them and kept her fears to herself.
But Josie was in the country under the care of her governess, Miss Flecknoe, and Tess was in her husband’s bed. Which left only two sisters to squabble, Annabel thought gloomily.
Imogen was in a sullen mood tonight, sitting with her lips pressed together, scowling at the bedpost at the end of the bed.
‘He’s got no right to act in such a fashion,’ she said. ‘He has no right!’
Annabel jumped. Her sister’s voice was as sharp as the north wind. ‘Rafe is our guardian,’ she pointed out.
‘I can do whatever I wish, with whomever I wish,’ Imogen said. ‘He may be your guardian, but he is not mine, since I am a woman of independent means. I never liked him, drunken sot that he is, and I never shall. And I shall never forgive Tess for not bringing us onto the season herself.’
Tess’s husband travelled a great deal, checking on his holdings all over England. Tess had taken to travelling with him, and was away from London as often as she was present, so Rafe, with Lady Griselda’s help, was bringing Annabel out this season.
‘You came out when you married Draven,’ Annabel pointed out. ‘You have no particular need for Tess’s help.’
‘Draven…’ Imogen said, and her whole face and voice changed, softened and looked like the old Imogen, before she became so harsh, so hard and shrill.
Annabel held her breath, but Imogen didn’t dissolve into tears. Instead she said, after a moment, ‘He was beautiful, wasn’t he?’
‘Very,’ Annabel confirmed. Just don’t ask me whether he was a reasonable person or a rational man, she added silently.
‘I loved his dimple,’ Imogen said. ‘When we married, I…’ she stopped.
Annabel saw a glimmer of tears in her sister’s eyes and surreptitiously pulled a handkerchief from her bedside table. She kept a supply there. But Imogen shook her head.
‘Do you know the problem with being married only a matter of two weeks?’ she asked.
Annabel figured that was a rhetorical question.
‘The problem is that I don’t have many memories,’ Imogen said, her voice tight. ‘How many times can I remember kissing Draven for the first time? How many times can I remember his asking me to marry him? If we’d just had more time, even a month or two, I would have feasts of memories, enough to last me for years.’
Annabel handed her the handkerchief. Imogen wiped away a tear snaking down her cheek.
‘There will be other memories to treasure, someday,’ Annabel ventured.
Imogen turned on her with a flash of rage. ‘Don’t try to suggest that anyone could replace Draven in my heart! I loved him from the moment I reached girlhood, and I shall never, ever love another man as I loved him. Never.’
Annabel bit her lip. She always seemed to say the wrong thing. Perhaps she should inform Lord Rosseter that she wished to marry him immediately; at least it would get her out of the house. ‘I didn’t mean to imply that you would forget Draven,’ she said, controlling her voice so that no shade of irritation entered. ‘But you’re very young to talk of never, Imogen.’
‘I’ve never been young in that respect,’ Imogen said flatly.
Annabel decided to try for a new subject. ‘I have decided to marry Lord Rosseter,’ she said brightly.
Imogen didn’t appear to have heard her. ‘Rafe said something similar to me, this very evening in the carriage. He actually implied…’ she turned to Annabel and hesitated. ‘I probably shouldn’t say this to you, since you’re unmarried.’
Annabel snorted.
‘He accused me of missing the pleasure of the marital bed!’
‘Oh. And are you?’ Annabel inquired. It seemed a reasonable, if impertinent, inquiry, given Imogen’s behaviour on the dance floor.
‘Of course not! I miss Draven. But not…or rather – if Draven were…’
Annabel rescued her. ‘Well, I can see Rafe’s point. I should think that anyone could reasonably have assumed that you were missing those particular pleasures, given the way you looked at Ardmore on the dance floor.’
‘Nonsense!’ Imogen snapped. ‘I was merely being seductive. The same as you always are.’
‘I never act in that way,’ Annabel stated.
‘Well, of course, you don’t have the knowledge that I do,’ Imogen said pettishly. ‘You’re just a maiden, after all. I was able to be much more direct because I understand what happens between a man and a woman in the bedchamber.’
Annabel did not trust herself to speak.
‘At any rate,’ Imogen continued, ‘I have definitely made up my mind to take Ardmore.’
‘Take him?’ Annabel inquired, giving her a direct look.
‘Make him part of my retinue,’ Imogen said, waving a hand in the air. ‘That’s all I’ll say on the subject to a maid, even if you are my sister.’
Annabel ignored her provocation. ‘Be careful, Imogen. I would be very, very careful. That earl does not look like a tame pussycat to me.’
‘Nonsense,’ Imogen said crossly. ‘Men are all the same.’
‘All right,’ Annabel said. ‘Make him your cicisbeo, if you wish. But why put on such an exhibition while dancing? Why embarrass yourself in such a fashion?’
‘I was expressing our mutual –’
But they had been siblings for a long time. ‘Whatever it was you were expressing, it wasn’t a desire to bed Ardmore.’
‘Yes, it was!’ Imogen flared, and then the words died in her throat. She had been so certain that she was being inviting and sensual. But perhaps she had failed at that too. She glanced at Annabel. It was tempting to confide in her…
No. She couldn’t bear to tell Annabel of her marital failures, Annabel who had the ability to make any man within ten yards start panting.
‘You could talk to Tess about it,’ Annabel said now, showing that uncanny ability that sisters sometimes have to guess what another is thinking.
‘There’s nothing to discuss,’ Imogen said, coughing to cover the rasp in her voice. ‘I thoroughly enjoyed myself dancing with Ardmore, and I look forward to more happy hours with him.’
‘You sound like a vicar accepting a new post,’ her sister observed.
What did Annabel know about anything? Imogen couldn’t talk to her, and she couldn’t talk to Tess either, because for all Tess was married, she was happy.
She took a deep breath. ‘I am enthralled by the pleasure I shall share with Ardmore,’ she said.
‘Perhaps not a vicarage…a bishopric,’ her sister mused, clearly unimpressed.
Imogen turned away.
Five (#ulink_23807fd7-d761-55b4-a8e0-94d641d9d57c)
Lady Mitford’s garden party was savoured by each member of the ton lucky enough to receive an invitation. Of course, they savoured it for different reasons. Mothers of nubile girls found that the romantic bowers Lady Mitford placed around her gardens were excellent enclosures for nurturing intimacies that were not too intimate.
Those who were, for whatever reason, uninterested in mating games enjoyed Lady Mitford’s considerable efforts toward producing true Renaissance cuisine. There was the year, for instance, when a pie was split open to reveal five cross and extremely undercooked doves who promptly flew into the air. When one of them dropped a noxious substance on the head of an upstart young lord, the pie was deemed an enormous success.
Finally, the day was appreciated by those with a sense of irony. Ewan Poley, Earl of Ardmore, would have put himself in the latter category. In fact, this was by far the most entertaining gala he had yet attended in England.
Lady Mitford had positioned herself and her husband at the far end of a great stretch of lawn, the better so that entering guests could admire the spectacle. They were a plump couple stuffed into brilliant Renaissance clothing; Lord Mitford’s canary-yellow stockings were particularly noteworthy, as they were echoed by some thirty servants stationed about the lawns. The couple sat on gilded armchairs that had a suspicious resemblance to thrones, under a sky-blue silk canopy that rippled in the breeze. Around their feet frolicked a number of small dogs and a real monkey, tied to Lady Mitford’s chair with a silk ribbon. Ewan tried not to mark the fact that the monkey appeared to be squatting on Lady Mitford’s silk slipper and enjoying a private moment.
He bowed before her. ‘This is a tremendous honour, Lady Mitford. I cannot thank you enough for including me in your invitation.’
‘Wouldn’t have missed you,’ she barked at him, sounding for all the world like one of her small dogs. ‘I do believe I had at least eight requests for your inclusion – all from mamas, of course.’
Lord Mitford gave him a conspiratorial smile. ‘Our gala is quite known for the matches that have ensued.’
