Evelyn Richardson (6 page)

“There,” Lady Streatham chimed in gaily. “Now, if we're all to survive this Season and bring Kitty out in proper style, perhaps we'd best put country matters out of our minds.” She looked meaningfully from Kitty to the two who had established an uneasy truce.

Frederick, who had been gazing with rapture out of the window at something in the street below, could bear it no longer. Pointing at Mainwaring's elegant equipage, he asked, “I say, sir, are those grays yours? What an absolutely bang-up pair! They look to be very sweet goers. You must drive to an inch if you can hold them. Do you, sir? How are their mouths? They look as though they'd respond to the lightest of hands. They must go like the very wind when you spring 'em!”

The forthright speech and blatant admiration of a scrubby schoolboy were something totally beyond Lord Mainwaring's vast experience. He discovered, too late, that he was no proof against them. “Yes, they are mine. Would you care to have a look at them?”

Frances noted with surprise that he spoke as casually as though her brother were one of his driving cronies. She had not thought to discover such sensitivity in one who had previously show himself to be unpleasantly blunt—to put it mildly. Mainwaring had certainly won her brother's undying loyalty.

“Shouldn't I just!” exclaimed Freddie as he dashed downstairs, leaving Mainwaring and the others to collect themselves.

“We mustn't keep Grandmother or the horses waiting. Good to see you in town at last, Elizabeth. Since you've commandeered me for Lady Richardson's ball, I hope you'll drag Streatham along with you so there will be at least two men of sense there to support each other.” With that and a “Good day” to Lady Frances, he followed Freddie's tumultuous descent in a more leisurely manner and handed his niece up into the curricle. His lips twitched slightly at the sight of Frederick earnestly debating the grays' good points with his tiger, who, seeing his master, bade a speedy good-bye to the boy and leapt up behind.

Lady Elizabeth stayed long enough to invite Frances to dinner with them before the ball, thus ensuring her presence. She forestalled the protest she knew was coming. “My dear, you simply cannot forgo all social intercourse while you are here, you know. You must come because I shall be very busy with Kitty, and someone must keep an eye on Streatham and Mainwaring. Both of them loathe these things so, and they are being so good in attending them for Kitty's sake. But if you aren't there, Streatham is bound to fall asleep in a corner and Julian will be besieged by matchmaking mamas or, worse, their daughters. Such chivalry should not be so poorly repaid. I know you found these scenes a dead bore before, but how could it have been otherwise with Lady Bingley and her set? Why, they have more feathers on top of their heads than they do inside them.”

Lady Frances laughed outright at this, but Lady Streatham could see that she had been struck by the truth of the remark and its interpretation of the cause of her previous disenchantment with the fashionable life of the ton.

Chapter Six

Though ill health had forced the dowager Marchioness of Camberly to relinquish her former role as one of society's leading patronesses, it had not deprived her of an active interest in or reliable information on all of its comings and goings. Julian Mainwaring, who possessed a spirit and intelligence to match her own, had always been her favorite among her children and grandchildren. It had always seemed unfair that he and not the soft and sentimental John was the second son, when Julian had all the natural attributes befitting the master of Camberly. She had been delighted when his uncle, recognizing these abilities, had made him heir to his vast interests at home and abroad, though it had saddened her that fulfillment of these responsibilities made it impossible for him to visit her very often. However, whenever he was in England, he made it a point to come see her before seeing anyone else. She enjoyed his rather caustic wit, which recognized and ridiculed pretension as quickly as she did, and she greatly relied on his interpretations of social and political events for knowledge of the true state of affairs in the world, where she was no longer able to observe and judge for herself. The one point on which the two of them were not in complete agreement was matrimony.

Lord Mainwaring categorically refused to see any value in an institution that forced people of dissimilar interests and propensities to endure each other's presence under the same roof. To his grandmother's acid suggestion that there was such a thing as love, he had replied that she might be right, but as that usually didn't last very long anyway, surely it was unwise to hasten its demise by marrying, when it could be enjoyed perfectly well and perhaps longer outside of marriage. She knew she would sound uncharacteristically sentimental to him if she were to suggest that the passion to which he referred and true love—a combination of that passion and mutual respect—were two very different phenomena. So she had held her tongue, hoping against hope that he would discover his error and find someone to share his life and interests just as she had. So far he had closed his eyes to the type of female who might be expected to be both companion and lover, concentrating instead on the entangling and purely passionate liaisons with expensive and experienced matrons of the ton. She hoped his succession to the title and the obvious necessity of introducing his niece to society would force him to abandon these and look around for a suitable partner. Though he might not choose matrimony, Julian had enough respect for history and his family name to recognize his duty in providing an heir. In order to discover his sentiments on that subject, and to give herself the chance to exert at the outset what little influence she had, the dowager Marchioness had invited him and Kitty to tea immediately upon their arrival in town.

They entered the ornately decorated drawing room to find her well-wrapped in a variety of richly embroidered shawls, ensconced on a sofa before a roaring blaze. “So, Julian,” she barked as she extended her hand for him to kiss. “It's about time you took a position in society instead of skulking on the sidelines with the excuse you were too busy or gallivanting all over the world. And this is Kitty. Come here, child, and let me have a look at you. Very pretty. Not quite so lovely as your mother, but you'll do. And very well-behaved too,” she observed as Kitty shyly curtsied to her. “You should have no trouble at all firing her off, Mainwaring. I congratulate you on having charge of a charming ward.” Then, turning to Kitty, who was trying to keep her awe of this alarming old woman from showing, she continued, “How do you like town life?” Kitty responded shyly that she liked it very well but had not been about a great deal yet. “You will do, my dear, you will do. And soon you'll be in such a whirl you'll not have a moment to yourself.”

Further observations were cut off by the entrance of her aged butler staggering under an enormous tea tray, which, in addition to a hugely ornate tea service, contained incredible quantities of sweetmeats. It was fortunate for Kitty, who possessed a healthy appetite, that there was an abundant supply, as she was totally ignored while the dowager pumped her grandson for the most recent political news as well as the most scandalous on-dits. These he recounted with such skill that she was soon laughing merrily and contributing her own share of satiric comments. Never being one to wrap things up in clean linen, she soon broached her main reason for inviting them, demanding in her abrupt fashion, “Have you given Lady Welford her conge yet?” The amusement vanished from Lord Mainwaring's eyes. “Don't poker up at me, my boy. Do you take me for a flat? We both know it's all very well to live the gay bachelor existence, but as head of the family you now have responsibilities that go beyond managing the estate. You need a marchioness and an heir. Dancing attendance on someone like Vanessa Welford, who is no better than she should be and greedy to boot, won't do.” Correctly interpreting Julian's raised eyebrows and quick glance at a round-eyed Kitty, she snorted, “Don't worry about Kitty. It's time she learned a thing or two. I have no patience with these niminy-piminy modern gels and their overnice scruples. Far better that she go into the world with her eyes open than to cry them out later when she discovers her husband has 'another interest.' “

Seeing that the old lady was becoming agitated, Julian took a beringed hand in his firm clasp, remarking, “Just so, ma'am, but we'll discuss this some other time. You must save your strength to rake me over the coals another day.”

The dowager gave him a sharp suspicious look but the genuine concern she read in his eyes demonstrated that his remark had truly resulted from solicitude rather than evasion of a sore point. Sighing, she agreed that she was just the slightest bit tired, but only the slightest, and rang for Biddle to show them out, murmuring, “Do please come often, Kitty, to share your latest adventures and conquests with me.”

Mainwaring laughed. “As to that, Grandmother, you will know all about her conquests even before Kitty does, probably.”

“Off with you, you wicked boy!” The dowager was inordinately pleased with his assessment of her incredible network of social reporters.

Kitty was unusually silent on the ride home, digesting this latest piece of information about her guardian. Less in awe of him than she had been at first, she no longer annoyed him with numerous nervous attempts to engage him in conversation, but behaved more naturally—to the relief of both of them. They rubbed along as well as might be expected of a worldly thirty-five-year-old man and a sheltered schoolgirl of seventeen. Try as she would, she could not picture her reserved and haughty Uncle Julian in the passionate embraces of some ripe beauty. The vision of him as a lover just did not coincide with all that she had heretofore seen of him conferring in his library with distinguished-looking peers, discussing voyages and the status of his colonial enterprises with captains recently returned, or pursuing the purely gentlemanly pursuits at Brooks's, Gentleman Jackson's, Manton's, and Tattersall's. Kitty resolved to pay more attention in the future, hoping to elicit some interesting details from her new abigail, Alice.

This recent addition to the household was only too happy to regale her country-bred mistress with interesting tidbits about the ornaments of London society. It was to this lively damsel, more than to Lady Streatham, that Kitty owed her growing knowledge of what was “done” and what was “not done” in the ton. Those belowstairs had an even more rigid code of conduct for those they served than did their masters. For it was better to be a there housemaid in a house of the first stare of respectability than to be abigail to someone of more dubious reputation, such as Lady Welford. Alice hoped to ensure her own position by keeping her mistress on the most narrowly virtuous path. “The best way to do that was to keep her informed of the pitfalls along the way and to warn her of the disastrous mistakes that less-well-informed maidens had made.

When Kitty approached her, she was more than willing to talk about her employer's formidable reputation as successful wooer of some of society's most dazzling women. Kitty listened openmouthed as Alice, not a little proud that her master was so dashing, added one name after another to the list of his conquests. “But, Alice,” she gasped, “those ladies are all married!”

Her preceptress nodded. “Aye, so they are, my lady. Them's the sort that gets married as quick as possible to some bloke who is as dull as he is rich so they can live like they really wants to and choose their own lovers.”

The description of the standard marriage of convenience was all news to Kitty, whose parents had been unfashionably and madly infatuated with each other, and she remained a little confused. Still unable to envision her forbidding guardian in the role of ardent lover, she asked incredulously, “But is he in love with all these ladies at once, then, or one after the other?”

Alice snorted. “Good Lord, no! He's just—ahem—'attracted' by their beauty, if you understand my meanin', miss. He's a reg'lar conoosewer and won't be seen with nothin' but the best, most fashionable ladies. You won't catch his lordship with anyone who isn't what you call a reg'lar diamond. But, Lord, he ain't even that good friends with them. They don't understand all the complicated political things he's into and they don't want to bother their pretty little heads trying. They're happy just so long's he keeps givin' them jewels and takin' them to the opera and suchlike, for they be right proud to have caught him and they want all their friends to see them with him.”

Kitty admitted to herself that she had seriously underestimated the variety and magnitude of her uncle's abilities. She knew that to succeed with women in these days of social refinement, any man must possess a good deal of address. She could not picture the Uncle Julian who corrected her conversation, and who was more likely to point out what was wrong with her appearance than compliment her on it, whispering gallant nothings into some lady of fashion's ear. Alice assured her that, contrary to appearance, her seemingly taciturn uncle was famed for his expertise in the art of dalliance when he wished to put forth the effort. Kitty could hardly wait to share her discovery with Lady Frances and to discover whether she were any more conversant with the d la mode way of marriage. If she were, it would certainly go a long way toward explaining her distaste for the London season with its universally accepted goal of the advantageous match. Mulling all this over, she gave herself up to Alice's deft ministrations in preparation for dinner.

Chapter Seven

The marquess, feeling that he had done his duty and endured enough female company for at least a week—certainly for the day—strolled to Brooks's after dinner in search of convivial company. Luck was his. He encountered the Honorable Bertie Montgomery, exquisitely garbed in delicately shaded pantaloons and a coat that had taken the best of his own and his valet's efforts, as well as an inordinate amount of skill, to smooth onto his slender form without a wrinkle. The Honorable Bertie had been a close friend of Julian's since their days together at Eton and then Oxford. It was a friendship that continued to puzzle many who failed to see that the constantly cheerful Bertie provided a relaxing companionship for his more serious friend, while Julian's intelligence and adventurous nature flattered the sociable Bertie and provided him with a glimpse of exciting worlds without involving him in them.