Friends and Foes (3 page)

Philip felt suffocated as he sat in his well-sprung, top-of-the-trees, flashy carriage with the Lampton seal proclaiming the superiority of the vehicle and its passenger for any who cared to look (and he knew from experience that plenty did). He would have much preferred making his way to Suffolk on horseback freezing near to death like any self-respecting gentleman. But, he lamented, one must keep up appearances.

Therefore, he traveled in a bottle-green waistcoat, complete with blue-embroidered hummingbirds and enormous silver buttons beneath a coat of matching blue superfine and an outercoat with no fewer than five capes. His high-starched cravat sported a knot of fashionable perfection. A stylish high beaver sat on the seat across from him. His feet were housed in his polished-to-a-mirror-shine Hessians propped up beside his hat. What he wouldn’t give to be in his dressing gown and carpet slippers, a luxury in which he seldom risked indulging. Dandies simply didn’t wear such things.

Reminding himself that some sacrifices were worth making, Philip glanced out the partially curtained windows of his carriage at the path bending smoothly toward the white stone façade of a house he knew as well as his own: Kinnley.

He’d traveled to the home of his best friend too many times to count since he and Lord Cavratt had met at Eton. Of course, his friend had been only “Crispin” then, and Philip had been only Lord Jonquil, a courtesy title he had preferred to ignore.

“Lud, that was a long time ago.” He sighed into the silence of the empty carriage.

Yet Kinnley had not changed: Jacobean architecture with its characteristic flat roof and rounded archways perfectly complemented by an almost naturalistic approach to the landscape. Skeletal trees, stripped bare by the hand of winter, stood in informal greeting on either side of the carriageway. As the final bend brought the path directly in front of the house, the trees gave way to open land with an unimpeded view of the house to one side and the sea to the other.

Philip could easily picture in his mind the large, shallow lake and formal knot garden behind the house and the expanse of rolling fields spreading as far as the eye could see. No. Kinnley never changed. When they were fifteen, Philip had tried to convince Crispin to trade estates when they came of age. The late Lady Cavratt had swooned on the spot. In the end they decided to keep their respective homes.

“Lord Lampton,” Hancock, the Cavratt’s all-seeing, all-knowing butler greeted from the front door, offering the appropriate, though entirely unnecessary, bow.

“Am I too early for a dramatic entrance?” Philip asked, smoothing the almost imperceptible wrinkles on his coat sleeves.

“I believe the household is gathered in the west sitting room, my lord,” Hancock informed him.

“Perfect.” With a quick sidestep and the long stride his height afforded him, Philip, twirling his walking stick, easily passed the butler and moved without a single pause to the room Hancock had mentioned. As reported, the entire household seemed gathered there.

Philip immediately spotted Crispin—dark, wavy hair, clothes in respectably subdued tones. No hummingbird motifs for the very sober Lord Cavratt. Beside him stood a lady a few years his junior, with honey-colored hair and a pleasant, quiet air. Crispin’s wife had swiftly become one of Philip’s favorite people. She smiled at his antics and laughed at his jokes but never laughed
at
him. More important still, she’d made Crispin happy,
truly
happy. If women could be knighted, he would put in a word for her. Perhaps she should be sainted, though Philip knew he had very little influence On High.

His thoughts did not remain on his hosts for long, nor did he do much more than vaguely note the unfamiliar house guests gathered there. The room was positively teeming with his family members, who, as always, grasped his immediate attention. His beloved mother—“Mater,” as all the brothers had called her since their childhood—wore her customary elegant black bombazine and black cap. The only splash of color, aside from her bright blue eyes, came from a blue topaz pendant hanging around her neck. How Mater managed to look elegant and ageless in full mourning, Philip would never know. Father had been gone nearly a decade, and Mater had yet to so much as lighten her mourning attire. Sometimes he wondered if she would have recovered from her loss faster if all seven of her sons hadn’t been the spitting image of their father.

He eyed the three brothers present. To a one, they sported golden hair, blue eyes, and tall and lean builds. ’Twas no wonder, really, that society made little effort to differentiate them, contenting itself with referring to the collective whole as “those Jonquils.” Philip himself mixed their names up on occasion.

Corbin and Jason, the twins—though their resemblance began and ended with their very Jonquil-esque appearance—had arrived at Kinnley and stood in exclusive conversation to one side of the room. “Conversation” was perhaps a stretch. Jason talked and Corbin silently listened, the typical arrangement for those two since nearly birth. Another brother, Stanley, home on medical leave from fighting on the Continent, had come as well. He sat awkwardly attempting to talk to a rather lovely young lady over a game of backgammon. Jonquils tended to make fools of themselves when conversing with ladies. Poor Stanley was probably making a mull of the entire thing.

Philip glanced quickly between his family members. On whom should he swoop down? His customary entrance required both the element of surprise and a certain flamboyant flare. Mater, Philip quickly decided. Definitely Mater. He moved quickly and quietly to the sofa where his ever-dignified mother sat listening to the unceasing chatter of an unidentified companion. He slipped smoothly on to the sofa beside her.

“How about a kiss for your favorite son?”

“My dearest Layton!” Mater exclaimed and turned in Philip’s direction.

“
Layton
?
Layton
? You wound me, Mater.” Philip clasped a hand over his heart and grimaced as though run through by his mother’s words. Laughter that could belong only to a roomful of Jonquils echoed off the walls. “And I had my Hessians champagne-polished and everything.”

“You know I am only teasing you, dearest.” Mater smiled. “Give your Mater a kiss, then greet your hosts like a proper guest.”

Philip pecked Mater’s cheek then rose to do the pretty around the room. His hosts merely smiled in amusement when Philip minced his way toward them. One’s best friend could not be expected to do anything else. They’d known each other too long for formality.

His brothers’ greetings were easy to predict as well, thanks to a lifetime of association.

Corbin smiled but offered no actual words in greeting. Jason looked him over disapprovingly, shook his hand, and quickly took up once more the topic of discussion between him and his twin.

Stanley clasped his left arm around Philip’s shoulder, Stanley’s right arm apparently paining him again, and welcomed him warmly. “Philip, allow me to make known to you Miss Marjie Kendrick.”

The blue-eyed china doll curtsied prettily. She couldn’t be more than seventeen, eighteen at the most. Philip hoped, for his own sanity, she didn’t giggle. As the very definition of a Bond Street beau, Philip would be positively required to offer endless witticisms and overblown compliments but didn’t think he could survive four weeks of schoolgirl giggles.

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Kendrick.” Philip bowed deeply with a sweep of his hand.

She looked momentarily taken aback by his affected manner but quickly recovered herself. “I am afraid I shall have to be Miss Marjie, my lord. I have an older sister, you understand.
She
is Miss Kendrick.”

“Mrs. Kendrick is chatting with Mater.” Stanley motioned with his good arm toward the sofa.

Philip eyed his mother’s conversational companion. The matron, wearing more frills than a dozen debutantes combined, giggled. Philip raised an eyebrow in surprise.

“My mother is . . .” Miss Marjie paused, looking quite at a loss to describe her mother appropriately. “That is, she . . . Mother is very youthful.”

“How fortunate for your mother.” Philip offered Miss Marjie a conspiratorial glance, which earned him a soft laugh—not a giggle, he noted with satisfaction.

“Doubles,” Stanley called out, pulling his opponent’s attention to their game.

Philip made his way toward Crispin’s younger sister, Lizzie, having only just spied her across the room. She seemed entirely oblivious to his presence, which was typical. They grew up very much like brother and sister.

“Your husband is a brave man to leave you unattended amongst so many of England’s dashing single gentlemen,” Philip said with a wink once he reached Lizzie’s side.

“Oh, posh!” Lizzie laughed. “Edward knows perfectly well the Jonquils are like brothers to me.”

“You don’t find us devastatingly handsome?” Philip smoothed his jacket front as he assumed his most self-confident stance.

“What woman wouldn’t?” Lizzie smiled obligingly. “The Jonquils have broken half the hearts in England, I daresay.”

“Only because there are so many of us.”

“Probably,” Lizzie replied. “May I introduce you to a dear friend of mine?”

“Of course.”

Lizzie motioned to the settee beside her own chair, and Philip turned, his famous smile pasted on his face. In perfect unison, he and Lizzie’s raven-haired companion uttered a single word:

“You!”

He recognized the young lady in an instant, the harpy from the inn in Kent! How could the fates be so unkind?

“You two know each other?” Lizzie sounded understandably astounded.

She
answered first. “Yes, I have had that misfortune.”
Miss
SK,
as he’d come to think of her, narrowed her eyes as she gazed critically at Philip. She still found him unimpressive, did she? The lady lounged quite at her leisure on the plush settee, not, apparently, inclined to curtsy or make any true acknowledgment of him. “The gentleman offered me some invaluable insights into fashion,” she added dryly, not breaking eye contact with Philip, though her words were supposedly for Lizzie. “Advice, I am told, Brummel himself would covet.”

“And yet”—Philip utilized his ever-ready quizzing glass to eye the ivory-handled walking stick leaning conspicuously against the wall beside the settee—“you seem to have disregarded the invaluable lesson.”

“We both seem to have disregarded all discouragement of our individual affectations.” She pointedly eyed Philip’s quizzing glass. “Although I find yours far more ridiculous than my own.”

“Naturally.” Philip bowed his head toward her.

“Yes, naturally. For
yours
truly is ridiculous.”

“And yours is not?” Philip used his most disapproving tone, one that had been known to send grown men running to their lodgings to change an offending neckcloth or horridly clashing waistcoat.

“I fail to see how it is any of your concern.” Did Philip hear a hint of emotion in her voice? So the quarrelsome nag could be ruffled, after all.

A high-pitched, overly sweet voice reached them from somewhere behind. “Sorrel!”

Philip’s opponent allowed the tiniest of exasperated sighs.

The same unidentified woman, though Philip strongly suspected the voice belonged to the frilly matron, spoke again. “That is no way to speak to the Earl.”

Miss SK,
Sorrel,
as he now knew her name to be, raised one sleek, black eyebrow in something bordering on surprise and amusement. “The Earl?” She almost chuckled on the word, watching him challengingly. “The earl of
what,
pray tell?”

Philip would have enjoyed the saucy retort if he didn’t already thoroughly dislike the lady.

“Have you any suggestions for an appropriate title?” he asked.
When all else fails, flirt
. The strategy had certainly worked before.

“Plenty, my lord, but my mother has already beseeched me to speak more respectfully.”

“The title would, then, have been disrespectful?”

“Naturally.” She matched with perfection the tone he’d used to utter the same word moments earlier.

“Pray forgive my daughter, my lord.” Philip suddenly found himself accosted by the matron in springtime ruffles and numerous yards of lace, talking in a voice that could not possibly have been so naturally girlish. “Sorrel was not always so insolent, I assure you.”

“Thank you, Mother,” Sorrel said dryly. “That is infinitely helpful.”

“Miss Kendrick seems to have made quite an impression on you, Philip,” Mater joined the conversation, looking far too intrigued for Philip’s comfort. “Though you seem to be having a disagreement.”

“A difference of opinion is all.” Philip glanced again at Sorrel—
Miss Kendrick,
he corrected himself—still lounging on the settee, though now avoiding his gaze. Let her squirm a little.

“And what has left you so at odds with this young lady?” Mater asked.

Bless Mater. Leave it to his ever-loving mother to offer up the perfect opportunity to bring a starched-up miss down a peg or two.

“A fashion faux pas, Mater.” Philip hooked a thumb in the pocket of his waistcoat, affording the room a view of his exceptionally well-made, if slightly bright, attire.

“Philip
is
known for his sense of the fashionable,” Mater said warmly to Miss Kendrick.

“What insurmountable blunder has you at odds?” Lizzie looked between Philip and her friend.

“We were debating affectations,” Philip said with a lazy smile. “She objects to my quizzing glass.”

“Not an unheard-of mannerism,” Lizzie conceded.

Philip nodded his agreement, spinning his quizzing glass on its ribbon. “
Her
affectation is not nearly so commonplace.”

“Sorrel has an affectation?” Lizzie appeared doubtful.

“So it would seem. Miss Kendrick and I became acquainted over a walking stick, you see.” Philip couldn’t help a victorious smile. “It seems she adheres to the Byron school of fashion, carrying a gentleman’s walking stick. She guards it quite vehemently, I understand.”