A Crime of Manners (9 page)

Henrietta was interrupted from her perusal by the realization the duke was looking at her enigmatically.

Dropping his hands, he turned his attention to Lady Clorinda, who appeared at his elbow. With the lady’s green eyes glaring at her, Henrietta’s self-esteem smarted intolerably and she quickly turned away into the throng of people.

Oh, why must she make a cake of herself in front of him! She was angry at the duke’s power over her emotions and decided to wait outside for her aunt where the chill of the evening might cool her burning cheeks.

It took just as long to fight her way down the stairs as it had to climb them earlier. At last she was outside, breathing deeply.

“Oh, my dear, there you are!” Lady Fuddlesby cried, coming out of the doorway with Colonel Colchester at her side. “Where did you run off to?”

Henrietta fought down frustration at this niffy-naffy question. “I am sorry, my lady. Somehow we were separated.” Henrietta noticed the colonel and smiled at him warmly. “Hello, sir. I did not see you inside.”

“I’m blessed if you could! What an infernal waste of time a rout is,” the colonel said gruffly. “Will I have the pleasure of seeing you ladies in the more civilized atmosphere of Almack’s tomorrow night?”

“Yes, thanks in part to your godson’s kind influence.” Lady Fuddlesby smiled at him.

“He’s a good fellow, my lady, despite the rare dustup the other night at the Denbys’.”

“Do not give it another thought, dear sir. Henrietta and I have quite forgotten the incident. We realize gossip can turn the most innocent remark black.”

Lady Fuddlesby did not notice Henrietta’s sigh of exasperation.

The colonel took his leave after he made sure the ladies were safe in their carriage, and he could be of no further service to them that evening.

* * * *

“Now, why are you up in the boughs over some silly party, my boy? No need to make a piece of work over nothing,” Colonel Colchester stated to the duke.

They had returned from the rout separately, the duke having escorted Clorinda and Lady Mawbly home first. The colonel joined his godson in his bedchamber for a brandy before the comfortable fire.

“I had not decided whether to attend the Peabodys’ breakfast on Thursday,” Winterton said reproachfully.

“But Lady Peabody said you were to come and begged me to accompany you. Didn’t think it amiss to agree. Felt sorry for her poor little daughter standing there with a broken arm.”

“Gammon! Do you know how her ‘poor little daughter’ came by that broken arm? I thought not,” the duke continued grimly at the colonel’s questioning look. “Betina tried to climb up the trellis outside this very window with the idea of compromising me.”

The colonel’s brown eyes twinkled merrily and he could not restrain a chuckle.

“Think it funny, do you?” the duke asked. Feeling harassed, he sprang out of his chair to pace the room. “I will choose the future Duchess of Winter-ton in my own good time. Without any conniving or help from anyone. I am well aware what is due my name. Marriage is a business contract, and I intend to enter into it only after weighing all my options. I will not have it forced upon me.”

The colonel’s smile faded from his lips. “Giles, it grieves me to hear you speak this way. It is true a man in your position can have his pick of the ladies by virtue of title and fortune. But the real advantage is that you can marry for love,” the older man finished, thinking fondly of his own dearly departed wife.

“Fustian! I think mutual rank, fortune, and, I grant you, a certain amicability is a better foundation for marriage than love.” The duke returned to his chair, sinking into its softness. He looked down into the fire, his dark mood intensifying when a vision of Miss Henrietta Lanford’s face inexplicably appeared in the flames. “I will honor the commitment to the Peabodys, however, for it would be rude to cry off now.”

In the corner of the room, Sir Polly Grey swung round and round on his perch giddily. “A gel with strong hips. Good for breeding!” he cackled in the seventh Duke of Winterton’s voice.

The colonel was familiar with the parrot’s pontifications and felt a strong desire to introduce the bird to a certain masked cat he knew who would lick his whiskers at the meeting.

He contented himself with saying, “Your views tell me you have never been in love, my boy. And you cannot use your parents’ marriage as an example, for a colder relationship, I am hard-pressed to imagine.”

The colonel rose wearily from his chair before the duke could contradict him. He retired to his bedchamber without imparting the information that later at the rout he had offered their escort to the Peabodys’ breakfast to Lady Fuddlesby and Miss Lanford. Best wait until tomorrow to tell him, he decided.

* * * *

Wednesday evening brought the opening night at Almack’s. Standing in the entryway, Henrietta knew she looked her best, but it did little to calm her nerves. Her ball gown was palest silver gauze. Tiny silver stars embroidered the deep square neck. Long white gloves adorned her arms beneath the gown’s puffed sleeves. A dainty tiara of diamonds and sapphires glimmered in her curls, Henrietta feeling nearly faint when Felice had brought the costly headpiece to her earlier.

Henrietta was still Society-shy from her experience at the Denbys’ and feared making a social misstep in front of the powerful patronesses of Almack’s, all of whom were out in force tonight.

She crossed through the hallowed portals of Almack’s and gazed about, disappointed. “My lady, can this really be the place whose admission tickets are so coveted? Why, the dance floor resembles a roped-off farm pen!”

Attired in her customary pink, Lady Fuddlesby stood beside her. “My dear, you are no one if you cannot dance at Almack’s! It does not matter the rooms are dreary and the refreshments insipid. We are here to be...” She ended with a question in her voice.

“I know, I know,” Henrietta said, “to be seen!” She and her aunt shared a smile.

Lord Baddick presented himself at Henrietta’s side, bowing low to the ladies. She thought his golden hair and hazel eyes showed to advantage against the contrasting dark brown of his evening coat and breeches. As usual, he calmed her nerves with his reassuring presence and compliments.

“Miss Lanford, now that you are here, the stars are truly shining,” Lord Baddick said, his warm gaze encompassing her beautiful gown. “You see I come to you immediately to claim my dances, drawn as a moth to the flame.” He scribbled his name by a country dance and the waltz.

As the country dance commenced at that moment, Henrietta tripped off with a delighted Lord Baddick to take their places in the set.

Lady Fuddlesby stood watching them when, moments later, a party containing Lord and Lady Mawbly, Lady Clorinda, and Matilda, Dowager Duchess of Winterton, entered.

Greetings were exchanged and Lady Mawbly introduced her daughter to Lady Fuddlesby.

Henrietta’s aunt remembered Clorinda dancing with the duke at the Denbys’, and she studied the girl carefully. Her gown was a pale green miracle of spider gauze. Lady Fuddlesby pondered the wisdom of the sophisticated cut for a girl of Clorinda’s tender years. In addition, a striking necklace of emeralds, unsuitable for a miss in her first Season, draped across her creamy skin. One large emerald teardrop dangled down to rest tantalizingly between her breasts. The girl’s mouth formed a petulant pout while she surveyed the room, obviously searching for someone.

The Mawblys moved on, but Matilda lingered to speak to Lady Fuddlesby. “Clara, Hester says that is your niece dancing with Viscount Baddick. Quite a success for you if the gel can bring him up to the mark. A title, plenty of money, and good-looking, too.”

Lady Fuddlesby chafed at her old rival’s superior tone. Her reference to the viscount’s title brought to mind her own acquisition of a title upon her marriage to Viscount Fuddlesby. A fact she was sure Matilda meant to remind her of.

Furthermore, she did not like the implication of Matilda’s arrival with the Mawblys. It implied Lady Clorinda had the dowager’s stamp of approval for her son, and Lady Fuddlesby was not about to concede the field when it came to her niece’s chances with the duke.

“Henrietta has her pick of suitors, Matilda. It is unfortunate you did not see her dancing with Mr. Brummell at the Denbys’ ball.”

Matilda raised an eyebrow.

Lady Fuddlesby heaved a sentimental sigh, saying, “I had tears in my eyes at the time.”

Matilda turned away, and Lady Fuddlesby, feeling she had won a skirmish, went to sit by her good friend Lady Chatterton, whose pale face resembled that of a corpse.

Across the room, Lady Mawbly whispered to her husband, “That gown Clara Fuddlesby has on is the one she wore the night I first noticed her pink tourmaline ring. I want that ring, Mawbly!”

The Earl of Mawbly was a small, thin man with a perpetually hunted look about him. He was totally under the cat’s paw between Lady Mawbly and Clorinda, living in fear of their nagging. He wanted nothing more than to closet himself in his library with his books.

Nervously he asked, “Does she have it on now, Lady Mawbly?” Hester’s obsession with her title extended to insisting her husband address her by it.

“No, but it makes no difference. I want you to buy the ring off her for me! It is unthinkable I should not have a pink tourmaline in my collection,” Lady Mawbly insisted.

As the country dance lasted thirty minutes, Lord Baddick still partnered Henrietta when the Duke of Winterton and Colonel Colchester arrived.

The duke saw Miss Lanford and the viscount, and resolved to find out what he could about Baddick immediately, having not had an opportunity to do so at the Whitfords’ rout.

Colonel Colchester went to seek out an army acquaintance, and the duke hailed his friend Sir Thomas Martin. Sir Tommy was a tall, gangling young man with a head of brown hair and an infectious grin.

“Hey, ho, are you dicked in the nob, Winterton? I mean,” he explained at the haughty expression on the duke’s face, “rather like putting a fox among the hounds, your coming to the Marriage Mart, ain’t it?”

“An apt way of wording it,” the duke replied, glancing around at the doglike faces of the hopefuls. “I need your help, Tommy.”

“You can’t mean you want me to marry!” Sir Tommy exclaimed, horrified. “That would only get one of them off your back anyway.”

“Are you foxed?” the duke asked his grinning friend. “Never mind, now listen. I need information about Baddick. There was a story going around right after Christmas. Can you recall it?”

Sir Tommy concentrated hard and was rewarded. “Bad business. Lady Honoria Farrow. Mousy little thing. Never stood a chance against Baddick’s practiced charm. He followed her to her country house and got his leg over her on Christmas Eve. The mother went into strong convulsions, but Baddick’s rich. Paid her off. Bragged about it, just to his intimates, mind you, but scandals tend to get around. His new game is to prey on innocent misses with only some female to guard ‘em. Speaking of fresh young misses,” he said, raising his quizzing glass, “who’s the dasher in the silver gown?”

The duke followed his friend’s gaze to Miss Lanford, her face flushed and her eyes sparkling up at Lord Baddick while they danced. “A green girl from the country, Tommy. A common squire’s daughter.”

“Maybe stooping too low for you, your grace,” Sir Tommy said sarcastically, “but not me.” Then, as his thoughts were never of a romantical nature for long—” Want to change your mind about being here and toddle off to White’s?”

Young puppy, thought the duke, out of reason cross with his friend. “No, you go on. I have only just arrived and may meet you at the club later.”

When Sir Tommy left, the duke’s mind kept repeating his words, “innocent misses with only some female to guard ‘em.” Miss Lanford was in town with only Lady Fuddlesby to protect her. Filling in the rest of the scene left the duke with a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach.

He ran his long white fingers through his dark hair. Deuce take it! He had tried to warn the chit at the Denbys’, but her temper had flared. He would apprise Lady Fuddlesby of the situation.

Winterton made his way over to her, ignoring any attempts by people he passed to hail him. Glancing back at the dancers, he realized he had but a few minutes while they promenaded before Miss Lanford might return to her chaperon.

Lady Fuddlesby looked up from her conversation with Lady Chatterton, pleasantly surprised at the

Duke of Winterton standing imperiously in front of her.

“My lady, a word with you, please.”

Puzzled, Lady Fuddlesby rose, and she and the duke stepped a few feet away. “Yes, your grace?”

“I feel it my duty to warn you about Lord Baddick, ma’am.”

Jealous! He is jealous, thought Lady Fuddlesby. How delightful! He must have formed a tendre for Henrietta in spite of the apparent quarrel during their dance at the Denbys’.

At the moment, though, Lady Fuddlesby reflected she must humor Winterton because, like any gentleman, it would take the duke a while before he realized the real nature of his feelings. “Why, what can you mean? Lord Baddick’s behavior is all that is proper.”

“There are certain stories going around about him. I have reason to believe they are true.” The duke found himself searching for the right words. He could not just tell this delicate lady that Baddick meant to take her niece to bed without the benefit of marriage lines. “You would be wise to cut the connection between Baddick and your niece.”

Lady Fuddlesby gazed at him reproachfully. “Are those words not a trifle strong, your grace? You gentlemen are allowed your little peccadilloes. Surely Lord Baddick is guilty of nothing more than that. Why, your own mother was speaking to me minutes ago about the suitability of a match between Henrietta and Lord Baddick.”

She rapped him on the arm playfully with her fan. “Are you certain of your motives in telling me this, Winterton? Henrietta is a charming girl....” Lady Fuddlesby trailed off with a knowing gleam in her eyes.

The Duke of Winterton stared down at her coldly. “You must be guided by me in this matter, my lady.”

“Giles!”