Amanda Scott (17 page)

“And I, Simon? Do you think for a moment that I would stand for such a thing?”

“You’ll do as you’re told, wench,” he said, raising his fist in mock threat. “This place gives me the sort of medieval notions you say the princess must feel from time to time. Only it’s not ‘off with her head’ for me. I can think of much better stuff than that.”

“I’ll not venture to dispute that fact, my lord,” she returned demurely.

Delighted, Simon laughed, gave her another hug, then pushed her along toward the stairs leading to the back hall. Within minutes, they were the well-behaved host and hostess again, speaking politely with one guest and then another and seeing to it that everyone had some activity to occupy his time until the hour appointed to prepare for dinner.

At six o’clock Diana and Lydia were descending the grand staircase together, preparing to join the others in the new hall for a congenial glass of sherry or ratafia before dinner was announced, when Diana spied Lord Roderick crossing the great hall below them.

“Good evening, sir,” she said, loudly enough for him to hear her. He glanced up, and she noted that he looked disturbed. Her curiosity aroused, she excused herself to her sister-in-law. “And pray, make my excused to Lady Ophelia, as well, Lyddy. There is something I wish particularly to discuss with Rory.”

“Diana, do you think that is wise?”

“Oh, pish tush, ’tis nothing of consequence. I shall be with you again in the twinkling of a bedpost.”

“In the—Diana, for heaven’s sake, of all the things to say!” But Lydia went away chuckling, and Lord Roderick, who had overheard the exchange, shook his head in exasperation.

“I wish you will have a care, Diana,” he said when she approached near enough that his words would not be overheard by the footmen in the hall. “You will have us both in the briars again, and I’ve no wish to annoy Simon just now, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Just now, Rory? Do you wish to annoy him at other times, then?”

L
ORD RODERICK HAD THE
grace to look ashamed of himself. “From time to time, I confess to an unquenchable urge to stir his temper,” he said, speaking low. “Come into the library if you wish to speak with me privately. No one will be in there just now.”

“That’s what we thought in the Double Cube room, Rory.”

“Oh, the devil take Simon and his jealousies! I have had a surfeit of them.”

“Then tell him about your Sophie,” she suggested quietly, “or allow me to do so.”

“No, Diana.” He closed the door of the library after first assuring himself that no one had been near enough to overhear their last exchange. “You don’t understand.” He sounded weary. “
They
wouldn’t understand. Sophie is as well-born as we are—I met her at the Duchess of Devonshire’s ball at the end of the Season, after all—but Papa and Simon both think I should set my sights on someone like the Fane wench. I tell you, I can’t do it. I wish George Villiers joy of her, but she would drive me to Bedlam in a week. On the other hand, I’ve no wish to have Papa or Simon ringing a peal over me.”

“Simon won’t,” Diana told him, “at least not about Sarah Fane. He likes her as little as you do, and he told me that he thinks the better of you for not showing an interest in that quarter.”

“Did he, indeed?”

“He’s your twin, Rory. I should think you would understand a little better than you do how his mind works.”

“Do you understand him?” he countered. “You’re his wife.”

“That isn’t fair. I’ve not known him a full year yet, whilst you’ve known him all your life.”

He turned away from her. “I guess I’ve never tried to figure him out,” he said quietly. “I’ve always felt like his shadow, you know, never really like his brother.”

“Do you now expect me to wring my hands with pity for you, Rory?” she asked calmly. “Because I won’t. I know exactly the sort of nonsense you’ve had to stand, first from your mother and later, though less blatantly, from Lady Ophelia. Simon is the good twin, and you are the bad twin. Nor shall I deny that the marquess treats you in a like manner. But what have you ever done to alter their opinions? Nothing that I can see. And I refuse to feel sorry for someone who has spent a great deal too much of his life doing the thing better than I could ever hope to.”

He turned back to stare at her, and hearing the echo of her words, Diana was aghast at what she had said. Would she never learn to keep her thoughts to herself? Why must they spill out as though she had no control over them at all? Lord Roderick’s face was suffused with anger, and she could scarcely blame him. Who was she to take him to task? She searched her mind rapidly for words that might unsay those that had gone before. There was nothing. She bit her lip, trying to make herself tell him she hadn’t meant such a flat rebuke.

Lord Roderick drew a long breath, visibly making every effort to stifle his temper. “Lord,” he said at last, looking directly at her, “no wonder Simon has such a time of it with you. What a vixen you can be.”

“I-I—”

“No, don’t apologize. You might undo the good you’ve done. You’re right, you know. I’m a past master at the art of self-pity.” He shook his head sadly. “I suppose the time has come to do something, at that.”

His words startled her, but no more so than his attitude. There was a strength of purpose emanating from him just then that was frightening. She remembered what John had told her earlier. “Rory, what is it you plan to do? Is it true that Sophie and the others have been arrested?”

“Good God, Diana, where did you get such a tale?”

“Someone told me he overheard you talking with the Comte de Vieillard this afternoon,” she admitted warily. “I had not even known he had arrived.”

“He leaves tomorrow. Look here, Diana, I must know who repeated that story to you. I cannot risk having such an exaggerated statement of the case reach the wrong ears.”

“Whose ears, Rory? I don’t wish to tell you who it was, but I can promise you he won’t say anything. Keeping mum is in his own best interests, I assure you.”

“Keeping mum? That phrase comes straight from young John or I miss my guess. What the devil was he doing? Hiding in the bushes?” He gazed at her, but Diana said nothing, and suddenly his expression changed to one of near-boyish guilt. “Oh, Lord, I’d promised to take him out, hadn’t I? Completely slipped my mind. But that young man wants manners. Imagine slipping up on a fellow to overhear his private conversation! You may tell him for me that I’ll dust his jacket if I find he’s repeated anything he heard to anyone else.”

“But why, Rory? If they have been arrested, Simon can help. He has connections in France, you know, and in London, too.”

“If there has been an arrest, which is still in great doubt, the possibility exists that the precious Vidame de Lâche is a party to it, and if he is, you may take your oath that games are afoot that even Simon could do nothing to prevent.”

“But I thought they had all been arrested.”

“De Vieillard merely suspects that to be the case,” he said, “so there is no reason to bring Simon into it. At this point, he has no particular reason to become involved, and if I were to tell him of my feelings for Sophie, he would merely advise me to have nothing further to do with her. You can’t deny that.”

She couldn’t. She agreed with him. But she was afraid he would do something foolish if no one stopped him, so she was greatly relieved when he told her it was all very likely a hum anyway. That followed her own line of thinking, particularly when he said he thought the comte was growing a bit senile, causing his fantasies and fears to overcome his good sense.

“He hates Bonaparte and fears him as well, you know. Thinks he’s nothing but a petty upstart. He and Aunt Ophelia have more in common on that head than she knows,” Rory said with a bitter laugh. “I don’t doubt that de Lâche is attempting to exploit Sophie’s beauty and innocence, damn him, and I wouldn’t put it past the man to offer his sister in exchange for his properties, but I cannot think how an arrest would benefit him. Nor can I think of a single reason for Bonaparte to clap them all up. I’ve told the comte the best thing is to give the post another few days or so, at least, before he really begins to worry. He’s sent a letter to Versailles, too, and should have a reply within a week or two. No doubt, they will all be safe at home by then.”

“I am persuaded you have advised him well,” Diana said, “and I hope you will also have the good sense not to scold young John. A reprimand from you would only draw his attention more narrowly to the matter, and I can safely promise he will say nothing of what he overheard to anyone else.”

“You said it was in his own interest to keep mum.”

She grinned. “He had a shotgun under his arm when I ran across him.”

“Good Lord, the young scamp! He’ll keep mum, all right. He won’t want word of that to come to Ethelmoor’s ears. Gentle chap, your brother, but I daresay if he knew his enterprising son had taken out a weapon without adult supervision, he’d give the lad a trimming that would leave him reeling.”

“He would.”

“That’s all right, then, but mind you say nothing to Simon, either, Diana. He may not care for the Fane, but he’ll care even less for poor Sophie. I mean to make all right and tight in that direction, somehow, before I say a word about it to Simon or Papa.”

“I won’t say anything, Rory, though I cannot think how you mean to convince the comte that you can support Sophie unless you make an arrangement with your father that will allow you to do so.”

“I’ll come about,” he said. “You are right in saying I’ve spent my time in wasted self-pity. Now, you’ll see a changed man. See if you don’t.”

“What I’ll see is a man late for dinner,” she said with a laugh when the little clock on the library mantel chimed the hour. “You won’t impress either Simon or the marquess with bad manners, sir.”

He grinned at her, then pointedly held the door for her to precede him into the hall. Diana laughed again but obeyed the gesture, walking out of the library just as Lady Jersey and Lady Westmorland descended the grand stair.

Although she would mark her Fiftieth year in little more than a month and was, thanks to her three prolific daughters if not to either of her sons, a grandmother several times over, no one would deny Lady Jersey’s beauty. Her features were delicate, although her nose had been accounted too large for some tastes and more than one ill-wisher had remarked that her upper teeth protruded too much for beauty’s sake. Still, her light brown hair showed more golden highlights than gray, and although she was a trifle plumper than it was currently the fashion to be, only the most critical persons would deny that she had a most pleasing figure.

That figure was set off tonight by a petticoat of pink crepe, tufted with frosted silver. Her high-waisted tunic was of matching material, crossed with silver embroidery and foil stones on black velvet, and was also tufted with silver and variegated to correspond with the petticoat. The dress was fastened up with elegant silver rouleaus and tassels.

To be sure, her ladyship did not appear to full advantage beside the youthfully blond, artlessly vivacious Countess of Westmorland, who had chosen to wear a white satin dress, superbly embroidered in gold thread and covered with gold netting. Lady Westmorland’s movements were quick but graceful, and good humor showed in every expression of her mobile features. Some said she was eccentric, but Diana, who had been acquainted with Jane Saunders before she ever became the Earl of Westmorland’s second wife, attributed this so-called eccentricity to the fact that Jane never rested or allowed anyone else to rest in her presence. Indeed, what with Lady Sarah Fane’s constant chatter and her stepmama’s restlessness, Diana had begun to wonder if the earl’s critics had not been a trifle unfair to the man when they accused him of not being at home so often as they thought he ought to be. Perhaps he had good reason.

The two ladies broke off an animated conversation as Diana emerged from the library, and two pairs of blue eyes turned toward her, one pair merely curious, the other very nearly malicious.

Behind her, Lord Roderick muttered under his breath, “Oh, damn, that tears it. Word of our
tête à tête
will be all over the abbey in a trice.”

Diana ignored him, moving forward to greet the two ladies, then catching her breath when she noted her husband with Lady Ophelia and Sir Richard Colt Hoare approaching the half-landing from the left upper branch of the stair. But perhaps, she told herself, Simon’s appearance might be put to good use.

“Ah, Andover, there you are,” she said, summoning up a bright smile. “I have been searching for you this age, sir, but no one knew where you were. And your hopeless twin, whom I found dozing in the library, could not be of the slightest assistance.”

Lord Roderick promptly accepted his cue, adopting the demeanor of a gentleman but recently awakened from his nap. He let his eyelids droop and drew a hand across his mouth as though he would stifle a yawn. “Must beg pardon, ladies. A dashed nuisance, I know, Simon, Aunt Ophelia, but I daresay I shall be a few minutes late.”

“I’ll tell them to put dinner back fifteen minutes or so, if you think you can manage to dress that quickly,” Simon said obligingly, though his eyes were Fixed upon his wife, who kept her smile carefully pinned in place.

“I cannot think what has kept you from your valet, Roderick,” pronounced Lady Ophelia.

“Can’t dress in only fifteen minutes,” put in Sir Richard, surveying Rory over the banister through his quizzing glass. “No man could.”

“Lord, yes, I can,” Rory said cheerfully. “I dress well, but I’m no cursed fop who takes two or three hours to make himself presentable. I’ll just nip upstairs if the ladies will excuse me, and be back before anyone notices I’ve gone.”

He suited action to words, slipping past the two women still standing on the bottom stair. Neither one had said a word, but Diana held her breath when both nodded a greeting to Simon, now descending the lower stairs with his companions. Lady Westmorland’s eyes danced with merriment, but Lady Jersey’s expression was one of haughty displeasure.

“Good evening, ladies,” Simon said smoothly. “Won’t you allow my aunt to take you into the drawing room with the others? I am persuaded you would all enjoy a glass of wine before that scapegrace brother of mine returns.”