A Christmas Gambol (3 page)

“You did it!” she cried, and ran forward to pitch herself into his arms. As Montaigne was a safe decade older than she and she had run tame at St. Albans Abbey forever, she felt no constraint until she felt his body stiffen. Over his shoulder, she saw Anne’s startled face. Then Sissie backed off with a little blush and added, “You talked him into it. How did you do it, Lord Montaigne?” She added the “Lord” to lend an air of formality to her indiscretion.

“The orphans were helpful. So was the loan of my prize bull. He will be servicing Bessie when she is in season.”

Montaigne would not have spoken so bluntly to ladies of the ton in London, but this plain talk caused no consternation to these farmer’s daughters.

“And I will be going to London!” Cicely sighed. Her face wore the dazed look of a state lottery winner. “When shall we be leaving?”

“Tomorrow morning, as early as you can get yourself ready. Don’t worry about gowns and things. Meg will give you a hand there. She’s very eager to see you. I wish you could come as well, Anne, but I know you won’t leave your papa alone—with only his valet and butler and cook and a houseful of servants to look after him,” he added with a rueful smile.

“No, indeed. I am that indispensible creature, a widower’s spinster daughter, and well enough satisfied with my fate. Will you have a glass of wine, milord?”

“I must be running along. I shall have a ride about the estate while I’m here.” He turned to Cicely. “What time will you be ready to leave?”

“Is eight early enough?” she asked.

A tolerant smile moved his lips. “Nine will be fine. I don’t want to rush you. Or myself,” he added, under his breath. When he’d said “early,” his hope was to get away by noon, but he appreciated the early start.

He took his leave of the ladies and drove on to the abbey, well satisfied with his visit. Sissie’s manners were rustic but rather charming. A London belle wouldn’t have pitched herself into his arms in that hoydenish fashion. He remembered the sudden thrust of her full bosoms against his chest and the resulting heat that suddenly invaded him. Sissie had certainly grown up in a hurry. It seemed only yesterday that she and Meg had been young girls, tearing through the meadows and coming home in tatters from their encounters with nettles and briars.

He’d slip her the hint that pitching herself into a gentleman’s arms was not the mode in London. A kiss on the cheek was the fashionable greeting.

He was happy for a restful evening without company, away from the turmoil of the House, and Society.

At Elmdale, delightful confusion reigned as the ladies rushed about, choosing gowns and bonnets and slippers. Mr. Caldwell asked Cicely into his study to warn her of the lack of morals that prevailed in London. His heart was not entirely made of flint, however. He also gave her fifty pounds, saying she might want to buy a new bonnet while she was there. In her reticule were another fifty pounds, the sum she and Anne had managed to scrape together between them, with some help from the housekeeping money.

The entire household came to the door the next morning to see Miss Cicely off in Montaigne’s elegant black crested carriage with its four matched horses. While her small trunk and a gift to Lady Fairly of a peck of apples from Caldwell’s orchard were stored in the carriage, Cicely took her farewell.

“I shan’t forget to find you a pair of blue silk stockings, Anne,” she called. “And your graduated glass measuring vessel, Cook. I shall buy all the new fashion magazines, Anne, and take particular note of what sort of bonnets are the rage. Be sure to tell Miss Cooper why I cannot call on her this afternoon, for I told her I would. Good-bye, Papa.”

Then she climbed into the carriage, where she immediately let down the window for another volley of noisy farewells. Montaigne did not try to hasten their departure. He smiled tolerantly at her excitement. This adventure would probably be the highlight of her life. Her debut and grand tour rolled into one. How her eyes sparkled! And what a healthy glow on her young cheeks. Probably the result of eating apples.

He busied himself with John Groom, trying to decide where to store the peck of apples. Obviously they could not be tied to the basket or the roof, or they would bounce all over the road. In the end, the apples were stored on the floor of the carriage, between him and Cicely.

At last they were off. After a few hundred yards, Cicely stopped waving out the window and was available for conversation.

“Are you much familiar with London?” Montaigne inquired, to get the conversational ball rolling.

“Oh yes, I know it like the palm of my hand. We used to go every year when Mama was alive, and twice since then. We stay at Reddishes Hotel. I have seen the mint, and the animals at Exeter Exchange, and Hyde Park and St. Paul’s and everything.”

“Ah, I see you are no tourist,” he said, then felt foolish, as it was precisely the tourist attractions she had mentioned.

She took him up on it at once. “I am, really. Or have been until now. I’ve never stayed in a house. What I want to see this time is the rest of London. You know, the places the ton frequent, in case I ever want to write about them. I am particularly interested in the slums,” she added.

Lord Montaigne lifted his quizzing glass and studied her a moment. “I beg your pardon?”

“I said the slums. It’s where the poor people live.”

“I was not under the misapprehension that the ton lived there.”

“And perhaps Bedlam,” she added, unoffended.

“Where the lunatics live,” he said.

“Just so. Anne feels my next novel should have a little more excitement in it.”

“More like
Chaos,
in fact?” he inquired, arching a playful eyebrow at her. “So you have no objection to romance.”

“That’s not what I meant at all.
Chaos
was more fairy tale than romance. It leads ordinary girls astray to imagine a white knight, all full of virtue, is going to marry them. More likely to debauch them. It makes them dissatisfied with the ordinary sort of man they might actually land. One not likely to be a lord, with a face like a Greek god and all the virtues of the twelve apostles on his broad shoulders.”

“Ravencroft was not described as like a Greek god.”

“No, but it was there, between the lines. Now that I know your elderly aunt from Cornwall wrote the book, I can understand why it is so unrealistic. It’s an old lady’s idea of romance, dreamed up in her loneliness and embroidered while she sat alone, perhaps remembering some lover from her youth.”

The young provincial’s condescension grated on Montaigne’s nerves. “The critics felt the heroine was particularly well drawn,” he mentioned. Cicely’s answer was a snort of derision.

“You have some experience in romance, I take it?”

“Of course I have. I’m twenty years old. I’ve had two offers.”

“As you apparently refused them, there cannot have been much romance involved.”

“You’re very much mistaken, milord. I was totally infatuated with Sir William Sykes. My heart was quite cracked when Papa rejected him. It turned out he hadn’t a feather to fly with, and he dressed as fine as ninepence. But I didn’t go into a decline—or swoon, or even cry much—except the day he left for London.”

“What
did
you do?” he asked with mild interest. There might be a sequel to
Chaos.
He was interested to learn from an avid reader.

“Anne gave me her second-best bonnet and a box of bonbons. I ate the bonbons and was sick to my stomach. I felt much better in the morning. We went into town and bought new ribbons for the bonnet so everyone wouldn’t recognize it.”

“Very romantic!” he said with a jeering look.

“Better than going into a decline. Life’s too short to waste in tears. But it is mainly bored ladies who read a book like
Chaos.
I daresay your aunt wanted them to identify with Eugenie. What she ought to have done was set her book in the Middle Ages. That would have lent it at least a modicum of credibility. No lady today would behave as Eugenie did.”

“Yet she appealed to several thousand of today’s readers.”

“To simpleminded readers. Cook read the book to the servants. They all enjoyed it very much.”

Montaigne could find no reply to this piece of condescension except to remark that he had seen it on the sofa table of many ladies of fashion. A chit hardly out of the schoolroom, who imagined she knew London like the palm of her hand because she had visited St. Paul’s, had undertaken to malign his extremely popular novel—and he could not even give her the setdown she deserved.

“As you are to pose as the author, it will perhaps be best if you not bring your powerful critical analysis to bear on it in public, Miss Cicely,” he said stiffly.

She gave him an avuncular pat on the arm. “Don’t worry, Montaigne. I shall simper and smile and pretend to be vastly pleased with myself. But
entre nous,
we both know it is a perfectly
horrid
book.”

Montaigne lifted an apple from the peck and bit into it with a snap, to keep himself from a rude retort. He saw that the next few days were going to be even more trying than he had anticipated.

Chapter Three

“So this is where Meg lives,” Cicely said when the carriage drew to a stop in front of an impressive mansion on Berkeley Square. Her tone lacked enthusiasm. “We heard at home that Lord Fairly was very well to grass. This is nothing compared to your abbey, Montaigne.”

He felt again that surge of annoyance. “You will find that London mansions are considerably smaller than country estates. Land here is at a premium.”

“I didn’t expect him to grow oats in his backyard, but I thought the house itself would be grander. I’ll make a note of what you said.”

When she was admitted by a snooty butler, Cicely saw at once that while the house was smaller than an abbey, it was not a whit less grand. Any part of the entrance hall that was not marble was either carved, coffered, or gilded. At the end of the hall, a horseshoe staircase formed a graceful semicircle, with a banistered corridor above. The staircase was carpeted in crimson, with a white marble handrail and ornate brass spindles.

“Why does such a small house have two front staircases?” she askedMontaigne.

“They are like the flowers on a lady’s bonnet—for looks, not function.”

“It does look very stylish,” she allowed.

Lady Fairly heard their arrival and came darting to greet them. She looked at Cicely in her country outfit, with her hair pulled back under an unfashionable bonnet, gawking around like the veriest hick. Gracious! She had forgotten how countrified the Caldwells were. Sissie, undismayed, ran forward and threw her arms around Meg.

“Sissie, how lovely to see you,” Meg said when she had struggled free. “How are all the folks at Elmdale?”

“Pretty well, thanks. They send their love. Papa’s gout has been at him. Did I tell you Anne has put on her caps? I’ve heard of ladies leaping at the altar, but to be leaping at the shelf is just nonsense. I don’t think she’s given up on finding a match entirely. She wants me to buy her a pair of blue silk stockings to go with her new gown. We read in
La Belle Assemblée
that colored stockings to match the gown are all the crack.”

She peeled off her own mantle and bonnet as she spoke, and handed them to the butler.

“How are you, Meg?” she inquired, casting a long look on her old friend. “You look a little peaked. Are you enceinte yet? That will often lend an air of fatigue.”

Lady Fairly felt that same sort of annoyance that had been plaguing her brother throughout the trip.

“No, not yet,” she said, forcing a smile.

“Pity. You and Lord Fairly must be growing impatient. But I daresay you will find yourself in the family way soon. You really ought to take better care of yourself. You look hagged.”

“It’s the late nights that have destroyed my complexion,” Lady Fairly replied, darting a glance in the closest mirror. Mirrors were plentiful in the beauty’s mansion. As she observed her reflection next to Sissie Caldwell’s, she was struck with the difference in their appearance. She was the same age as Sissie, yet she looked a decade older. Sissie still had the full, pink cheek and glossy eye of youth. “Why do you stay up so late?” Cicely asked.

“We go out a good deal. Do come in and have a glass of wine.”

Cicely turned a critical eye on the saloon as she entered, taking notice of the rich appointments, all to be recorded in her notebook for future use. Was it possible she counted a dozen lamps in one room? “Could I have tea instead?” she asked.

“Certainly. Coddle, tea for Miss Cicely.”

“And some biscuits, if it’s not too much trouble. I am famished. I was so excited I couldn’t eat a bite of breakfast. Montaigne had an apple en route. Papa sent a peck of apples. You always said our apples made a better tart than those from the abbey, though they’re a little sour to eat out of hand. You might want to make a tart the next time you have a dinner party.”

“How nice. Thank you,” Lady Fairly said, casting a speaking glance to her brother. Apple tart indeed! As if she would serve such a thing to her guests—though she wouldn’t mind having Cook make her up one for her own private treat. They took up seats by the blazing grate.

“This is a lovely little house, Meg,” Cicely said.

“My dining room seats two dozen, and the ballroom can hold over a hundred,” Lady Fairly replied.

“I’ve been explaining to Sissie that London residences are smaller than country estates,” Montaigne said, swallowing a smile.

“Monty has told me why you are here,” Lady Fairly said, hoping to deflect the conversation from further aspersions on her mansion and her person. In particular, she disliked the way Sissie kept studying her face.

“I’m happy to oblige him. It will be great fun to meet other writers.”

“Then you have written something?” Lady Fairly asked with mild interest.

“Yes, a novel. A serious novel, not a ludicrous thing like your aunt’s book. I hope Mr. Murray doesn’t think I can write nothing but potboilers.”

The brother and sister exchanged another of those speaking looks.