A Season for Love (9 page)

There were more than a few glances, however,
for the little girl lifted from the Worley family coach by the
Viscount Frayne. When set upon her feet, she held her head high,
walking with dainty steps toward the entrance to St. George’s,
clutching her uncle’s hand, her dark hair, winsome face and dress
of pink dimity making such a charming picture that the unruly crowd
paused for a general sigh of approval. One voice rose above the
others: “Praise be, the little one’s not a great gawk like her ma
and grandma!” For a moment laughter rippled through the crowd,
echoing hollowly in Anthony Norville’s ears. Furious, he hurried
his four-year-old niece inside, hoping, probably in vain, that she
was too young to understand.

Cruel, unfeeling
bastards!
What was being said about young Huntley was
bad enough, but to mock little Susan’s mother and grandmother
directly to the child’s face. Not that the
ton
wasn’t almost as bad, Tony had to concede.
The buzz hanging over Mayfair was loud enough he was amazed people
weren’t in fear of attack by a swarm of bees. Although he had been
nearly as stunned by the news of an heir as his sister, Tony never
doubted the child’s legitimacy. Lady Longville’s long-kept secret
fit what he recalled of her eccentric personality. And Longville
was one of the sharpest men Tony knew. The possibility of the duke
being fooled by an imposter or a bastard was ludicrous.
Nevertheless, there were many—including those the viscount had
previously thought sober and sensible—who were far from ready to
accept the Marquess of Huntley as the duke’s heir. It would appear
that Longville’s solicitors had their work cut out for them. And
the scandal was bound to rub off on Jen. Almost, he could have
wished she had cried off.

Then he would not find himself
uncle-by-marriage to Lady Caroline Carlington.

On the afternoon after the duke’s arrival in
London, Tony had escorted his sister and niece to Longville House
for tea. It had taken a bit of maneuvering to convince the irate
Lord and Lady Worley that their daughter’s meeting with young
Laurence was best done in as much privacy as possible. When told
the full story of the duke’s journey to the Lake District, Quinton,
Lord Worley, had raged at length. Mostly for show, Viscount Frayne
later told his sister. “He’s so pleased Longville isn’t crying off,
he’d swallow a dozen lost brats.”

Nonetheless, Lady Worley’s anger and pride
were not so easily assuaged. She demanded to see the boy for
herself. But Tony had finally talked her out of it. “Give Jen a
chance,” he’d told his mother. “She has to do this by herself.” He
offered his mama his best smile, and Malvinia Norville had sighed
and given in. Her daughter and granddaughter would get a first look
at London’s newest phenomenon without her guidance and support.

As their carriage traveled the short
distance to Grosvenor Square, Tony kept telling himself he was
doing his family duty, supporting his sister and, of course,
satisfying a natural curiosity about this child being thrust upon
the
ton
as heir to one of
England’s premier dukedoms. But, truth to tell, his thoughts kept
straying to a pair of wide-set amber eyes, hair the color of honey,
and a face and figure God made to entice young men who had sworn
they had no interest in marriage. Oh, yes, Anthony, Viscount
Frayne, had leaped at the opportunity to escort his sister to
Longville House.

Lady Caroline and her father awaited them in
the drawing room, that young lady wearing what was probably her
best gown, though a far cry from London’s latest fashion. The duke
was his usual urbane self, although Tony thought he caught a hint
of defensiveness lurking beneath the surface.

“
I have sent for Laurence,” Longville
announced. Then, making a sincere, though awkward, effort not to
ignore little Susan, he turned to the child as soon as she was
seated on a chair so much too large for her that her little legs
stuck straight out in front of her. “You will like that, will you
not, Susan?” he said. “Laurence is only three years older than you
are. And on Saturday he will become your brother.”

“
Susan . . .,” Lady Eugenia
prodded.

“
Yes, sir,” the little girl piped up,
after darting a glance at her mother from the sky blue eyes which
seemed to take up most of her piquant face. Another hiss from her
mother. “Yes, Your Grace,” Susan Wharton corrected, peeking up at
the duke in a look guaranteed to have young men falling at her feet
in dozen years or so.

The duke beamed at her, and Lady Caroline was
reminded strongly of the father she had once known. She was
beginning to realize that, as fathers went, Longville—Marcus—was
superior to most.

“
The Marquess of Huntley and Miss Sarah
Tompkins,” the butler intoned, and every eye pivoted toward the
door.

Miss Tompkins looked every inch the image of
a superior governess. The streaks of gray in her once-dark hair
matched the gray of her gown. She was of medium height, with the
slightly thickened figure brought on by age. Although there was
nothing pretentious about her, she nonetheless gave off an air of
command. Miss Sarah Tompkins was a long-time employee, intelligent,
aware of her own worth, certain of her place in the household.
This, then, was the woman who had raised Lady Caroline. Tony felt
an odd rush of relief. If the children of Amy, Duchess of
Longville, had enjoyed any stability in their lives, Miss Tompkins
had provided it. Perhaps it would not be as impossible to soften
Lady Caroline’s dire opinion of society . . . and of marriage.

Lost in his personal thoughts, Tony was the
last to look at the child Miss Tompkins had escorted to the drawing
room. He became aware there was a great silence as everyone stared,
unabashedly tongue-tied as they looked at Kenrick Laurence
Carlington, Marquess of Huntley, a very large name for a very small
boy. Good God, Tony thought, his eyes are nearly the same color as
Susan’s. Not Longville’s at all, but the eyes of his wife, Amy. But
in every other way the boy was the image of his father. Tall for
his age, with dark curly hair, a determined set to his shoulders, a
natural arrogance unexpected in a child raised in a thatched
cottage as the son of the Widow Kennet in Little Stoughton. (Tony
had gotten the entire tale from his sister as soon as the duke had
revealed it.)

As Miss Tompkins was every inch the
governess, so Laurence Carlington was every inch the heir to a
dukedom. People have only to look at him, the viscount thought. How
can anyone deny he is exactly what Lady Caroline says he is?

The boy made a series of highly creditable
bows, acknowledging each introduction, adding just a hint of a grin
as he took in Miss Susan Wharton’s struggle to get down from her
oversized chair and make a proper curtsy. The viscount strode
forward and shook the young man’s hand. He rather thought he was
going to like Laurence Carlington. Gentlemen were not supposed to
take any notice of the infantry, he well knew, but Susan was a
charmer and young Laurence a true chip off the Longville ducal
block. Never had that old expression, “Like father, like son,”
seemed more apt.

What had begun as a tense and uneasy meeting
settled into as pleasant an afternoon tea as Tony could remember.
Lady Caroline, quite rightly, poured, and he helped distribute the
cups and pass the plates of delectable treats, which Cook had
provided. The generous repast had obviously been planned for the
gratification of all ages and included raspberry tarts, lemon
biscuits, both chocolate and almond puffs, gingerbread with vanilla
icing, and Portugal cakes with currents. The viscount thought he
saw a blush stain Lady Caroline’s cheeks as his fingers touched
hers when she handed him the tea cups. But perhaps he was mistaken.
Perhaps she was merely recalling her unfortunate words with Lady
Eugenia the first time they met.

Not that it mattered, of course. He was about
to become the chit’s uncle. Wasn’t there some problem about that,
or was that ancient prohibition only for uncles related by
blood?

Idiot!
The
matter was moot. Sometime, possibly when he was approaching forty,
he would have to consider a leg-shackle, but not now. Definitely
not now. And certainly not with a young lady who scorned the world
that comprised his life. Dammit, he
liked
the
ton
.

Unfortunately, Viscount Frayne, suspected he
might be in danger of liking Lady Caroline Carlington even
more.

And now there was no going back. Tony stood
beside Marcus Carlington in St. George’s, Hanover Square, and
listened to the words which would bind their families together
forever. He saw his sister swallow convulsively before she plunged
into repeating her vows. He saw the wave of pride sweep over the
duke’s face as his son proudly stepped forward to give his father
the ring that would be presented to his new mother. Smoke from the
candles, the drift of incense . . . the magnificently dressed
congregation, the arrogant groom, the white-faced bride. Lady
Caroline looking delectable in a hastily concocted creation from
one of London’s leading modistes.

It was unreal. Not the fairytale ending of a
great romance, but the shaky beginning of a marriage of convenience
that might, or might not, be what the duke and his new wife wished.
Although a gent didn’t care to dwell on such things concerning his
sister, Tony allowed himself a fleeting moment of relief that his
sister was not an innocent virgin. Longville would make an
overwhelming, if not intimidating, lover.

Outside, the mob waited. By the time the duke
and his bride signed the register, Viscount Frayne had arranged for
the both the Worley and Longville coaches to be at another, more
obscure, exit. The two families, including the dowager duchess,
made their escape in relative peace, with only those of the
quickest wits or the fleetest feet witnessing their departure.

The members of the mob, howling in
frustration as they discovered they had missed their quarry, surged
south toward Berkeley Square.

~ * ~

Since the Prince of Wales was one of the
distinguished guests attempting to make his way to the wedding
breakfast at Worley House, the Guard was called out. The result, a
goodly number of sore heads, bruised bodies, and an exacerbation of
tempers already sullen and discontent over the Regent’s spendthrift
ways and the general indifference of the nobility to the plight of
the poor.

Among the most disgruntled was Bert Tunney,
who ran a carting business from a warehouse down near the docks. A
burly man of rough temperament, he had little use for men who
considered themselves his betters. The Frenchies had the right of
it. The bleedin’ English aristos could have used a touch of the
guillotine as well. And now that old Boney was on the loose again,
they just might get a taste of it, after all.

These anarchist sentiments, however, did not
keep him from taking a good look at all that wealth and privilege
now and again. “Sometimes a man kin downright enjoy grindin’ ’is
teeth,” he’d told his friends and sometime cohorts, Alfie Grubbs
and Flann McCollum, before setting out for Hanover Square. It was
Bert Tunney who had so enjoyed proclaiming the bride “a great
gawk.”

While not-so-subtly pushing the wedding crowd
toward riot, Bert’s sharp eyes had not failed to note Alfie’s
slight, but effective, form working the crowd, relieving ladies,
gentlemen, and well-fed merchants of their valuables. And there was
Flann, standin’ off by ’imself, arms crossed as casual, by God, as
if he’d come to Hanover Square by mistake. As if the Irishman wuz
above lookin’ at the Upper Crust, just ’appened by as the wedding
party arrived, and not because he was plottin’ their downfall. For
Flann McCollum—though long enough in London to have acquired some
of its ways—hated the English nobility even more than Bert himself
and was a solid man in fight. But what Irishman wasn’t? Flann was
also on the dub-lay, an experienced housebreaker of no small skill.
“Sure and a man must eat while waiting for the revolution,” Flann
had once told him.

So it’s not surprising that Bert Tunney led
the surge toward Worley House, whipping the avid crowd into a mob
with bellows of rebellion. Nor surprising that his was among the
first heads bashed by an angry Guardsman before his sturdy form was
shouldered to the ground by a horse, forcing the half-conscious
carter to crawl away on his hands and knees. With each throbbing
pain in his head, each twinge of his shoulder, each bloody streak
left on the cobbles by his scraped knees, Bert Tunney vowed
revenge.

As Flann McCollum and Alfie Grubbs helped
Bert back to his warehouse near the docks, Jenny Wharton
Carlington, standing at the top of Worley House’s graceful
staircase, was wondering how she could ever have agreed to become a
duchess. If all this pomp and rigid display of etiquette were what
she would have to endure for the next forty or fifty years, it
might, perhaps, have been better to remain a widow.

Horrors!
She
must have allowed a sigh to escape, for her husband leaned close
and whispered in her ear: “Courage, my dear. I do believe I see the
end of the line at the bottom of the stairs. Lady Higgenbotham and
cane, supported by son.”

Before Jen could reply, the duke
straightened up, accepting the congratulations of yet another of
the wedding guests. The new Duchess of Longville summoned a
gracious smile, echoing her husband’s thanks.
Three more couples . . . three more couples . . . then I may
sit before I fall
. How very odd. She had survived the
Peninsular War and was exhausted by her own wedding.