June Calvin (6 page)

“I cannot think what you mean, sir,” she answered, suddenly very cool. Harwood realized she meant to freeze him out of any flirtatious notions.

“I refer to the fact that we seem to be having to spend as much time fending off unsuitable partners for ourselves as we spend finding suitable ones for our daughters.”

Deborah grimaced. “It is an unlooked-for and
most
unwelcome complication.”

“You must not hesitate to call on me should Morton or any other aspirant to your hand prove to be importunate.” The duke patted her gloved hand tenderly. “I shall stand your friend.”

Deborah suddenly could not speak, for a flood of contradictory emotions threatened to overwhelm her: gratitude for his friendship; alarm at the heat that his large hand seemed to communicate when he touched her, even though they both wore gloves; an absurd pleasure at his tender treatment; and an inexplicable sense of regret. But no, it couldn’t be regret. Regret for what? She certainly didn’t want anything more from him than friendship.

Blushing as she had not since the age of eighteen, Deborah bit her lower lip and looked away.

Harwood studied her averted profile in some puzzlement. Deborah Cornwall was a complicated woman. Her behavior toward him was erratic—sometimes confiding and sometimes cold and stilted—though he had done his best to put her at her ease. She seemed terrified of Morton, too. One would have thought a mature woman with so much natural presence could have easily put that toad in his place.

The young people had thoughtfully left for them the seat facing forward, and had already fallen into an animated conversation as the duke helped Deborah into the coach. He gave his coachman permission to start, then turned to study the woman at his side.

It would take awhile to know and understand her, but looking at her profile, and the sad, rather haunted eyes she briefly flicked up to his face and then away again, Harwood decided that she was well worth the time and effort. He crossed one leg over the other and set himself to diverting her with comments upon the passing scene.

Chapter 6

The pageantry of the military review was very much to Sarah’s and Jennifer’s taste. They exclaimed in awe at the precision movements of the mounted troops. Even a stray dog that took it upon himself to rout this herd of quadrupeds could not break the ranks of steaming horses.

Sarah was as enthralled as Jennifer. Last season her aunt, who inclined to the bluestocking, had taken her to innumerable lectures and concerts, but not to any of the military reviews. Both girls were flushed with pleasure by the fascinating sights and sounds around them. As the troops fanned out to join their friends and relatives after the parade, Sarah half stood in her eagerness to see whether Lord Alexander would ride over to speak to them.

“Do try for a little more conduct, Daughter,” Harwood warned, though the warmth of his tone belied his words. “If you pitch out of the carriage and get trampled, your young man will hardly find you an attractive sight.”

Sarah sat back down suddenly. “My young man! I don’t know what you mean. I only . . . Oh! Hello, Lord Alexander. That was thrilling!”

Jennifer leaned over John. “Yes, it was, and Mr. Fortesque acquitted himself very well without Demon to contend with.” Her eyes scanned the melee of prancing horses around them.

“I thank you, Miss Silverton.” Fortesque appeared suddenly on the other side. Introductions quickly followed. The duke noticed that Fortesque’s response was decidedly unenthusiastic upon being presented to John, and that his kinsman in turn looked very grim as he acknowledged the introduction with a curt “We’ve met!”

Lord Alexander curbed his overheated mount only long enough to ascertain Sarah’s plans for the next two evenings. Then, expressing all that was proper, he excused himself, as his horse needed cooling down. Henry had, perforce, to excuse himself also, leaving two excited girls, two worried parents, and one agitated young man in his wake.

“Where had you met Fortesque?” Harwood asked him.

“He was in my regiment.”

Harwood raised an interrogative eyebrow. Jennifer was waiting for more, too. When none was forthcoming in spite of John’s obviously carefully reined emotion, she pressed him. “Was he not a good soldier, sir?”

John looked at her regretfully. “Yes, indeed, one of the best. Quite without fear.”

“But?”

“Jennifer,” Lady Cornwall cautioned, “do not badger Mr. Warner.”

But Sarah joined forces with her friend. She had seen the tension between the two young men as well. “Yes, John,” she urged. “You may as well say it, for we will only be imagining much worse than it is, you know.”

“I expect it was just because of the anxiety that precedes battle, but he was inclined toward gaming beyond his means,” John slowly admitted, not liking the role of talebearer. “Doubtless he has mended his ways now.”

“And do you know anything against Lord Alexander?” Sarah held her breath.

“No. He is a bit younger. He didn’t take up his colors until after Boney was defeated.” Taking pity on Sarah’s anxious look, John added, “Certainly he was very competent in his duties as the Regent’s equerry last year when we were planning your ball.”

Sarah’s smile was radiant. “Yes, he was, and so kind when I felt intimidated by it all. And doesn’t he look splendid in his uniform? And Mr. Fortesque, too.”

Jennifer and her mother quickly agreed, while John and the duke exchanged amused glances. “Ready to have that uniform mended now?” Harwood asked sotto voce, for his secretary’s ears only. “Polish up your medals?”

John nodded solemnly. “Perhaps instead of standing for Parliament I should buy back my commission.”

Jennifer startled them both by abandoning the distaff side of the conversation to put her slender gloved hand on John’s arm. “Oh, please do not, Mr. Warner,” she begged, raising adoring brown eyes to his. “You have been wounded in the service of your country. That is quite enough military glory, and now Britain needs your abilities in the government.”

“I am very flattered,” John responded promptly, “and will do exactly as you bid me.”

Jennifer, as if suddenly aware of her boldness, blushed and looked down shyly, but her mouth curved into a pleased smile. Since she did not glance at her mother then, she did not see, as Sarah and her father did, that Lady Cornwall was looking decidedly alarmed at this exchange.

Hoping to distract her, Sarah coughed and waved her handkerchief about. “Such dust! And the heat is excessive. I am perishing of thirst.”

“I have heard it said that only ices at Gunter’s will overcome parade dust.” Winking at his daughter, Harwood gave the coachman his orders.

***

Much later that evening, the day’s dramas continued to have their effect on the various participants. In the Harwood mansion, Sarah and her father and John dined
en famille
, and Sarah ingeniously observed that she had changed her mind about purchasing new gowns. Only a few days earlier, she had refused her father’s urgings to outfit herself in the newest fashions, remarking dispiritedly that her wardrobe from last season would be more than sufficient for her role in helping her father seek a wife.

But this evening she informed him that she had underestimated the number of gowns she would need, and as well, the extent of the changes in fashions. “It would not do your consequence any good, would it, Father, to appear the dowd? Indeed, it might discourage a very fashionable woman from marrying you.”

Harwood quickly agreed. Delighted to see the sparkle back in his daughter’s eyes, he offered to accompany her on a shopping expedition on the morrow. Silently, he prayed that John’s investigations of Meade and Fortesque, to commence tomorrow, would unearth nothing to the detriment of either. Whichever of the young men had caught Sarah’s eye, likely Meade, the duke would be grateful to him, provided he did not turn out to be an unprincipled bounder.

John smiled to himself as he listened to Sarah and her father make their plans. Harwood had always been an indulgent husband and father. He hoped his investigations would allow the duke to indulge Sarah in her choices of husband. Thank goodness it wasn’t Henry Fortesque who had caught Sarah’s eye. John had not told all that he knew about Baron Egerton’s son. Fort had always taken full advantage of the devastating effect his looks had on the female sex. In short, the man was a womanizer as well as a gamester.

It looked as if Fort had his eyes on Jennifer. John’s mouth turned down. From the second he had seen Miss Silverton, he had been a lost man. From the second he had learned who she was, he had realized his suit would probably be hopeless. His own prospects had taken a major leap forward with Harwood’s gift of a seat in the House of Commons, but still, he had little enough to offer a beautiful, titled young heiress. And then to have Henry Fortesque come into the picture!

Fort would make a very serious rival, with looks that no woman could resist, and a title and prosperous estates to look forward to someday when Egerton died. John heaved a sigh and turned his attention to the syllabub.

***

While Harwood and Sarah were contemplating a new wardrobe, and John his dim prospects for marrying the lovely Miss Silverton, that young woman was listening to her mother’s earnestly voiced concerns.

“I could tell that you were impressed by Lord Morton’s two handsome sons, Jennifer,” she began.

Jenny laughed. “They look like an artist had designed them, so beautiful they almost don’t seem real. But I could tell you did not like them.”

“I know their father. He was a crony of your father, a gamester and neglectful husband. I seriously doubt that his sons have had a chance to develop a more elevated character.”

“Probably not, though you hustled me away before they could reveal anything of themselves.”

“Forgive me, dear. I despise Morton, so any connection with him seems undesirable. Perhaps I’m being unfair . . .”

“Perhaps, Mother, but be assured I will not give either of them any encouragement.”

“Can you make me the same assurance about Mr. Warner and Mr. Fortesque?”

Jennifer flinched a little. “Must I, Mother?”

Deborah sighed. “I am afraid so. Mr. Fortesque has an explosive temper, as well as being at the least a gamester. Mr. Warner did not, I think, tell all he knew.”

“He is so terribly handsome, it would be wonderful, I suppose, if he did not capture female attention at every turn.”

Nodding at her perceptive daughter’s insight, Deborah smiled. “Just so. You are very quick. Just do not let such a man capture
your
attention, for heartbreak is sure to follow.”

“Yes, Mother.” Jennifer folded her hands in her lap. “But surely you don’t think Mr. Warner is cut of the same cloth as Mr. Fortesque?”

Deborah sighed. “No, dear, of course I . . .”

“I mean, he is well-enough looking, but not dangerously handsome . . .”

Deborah suppressed a laugh. John Warner was tall and solidly built, but he had a plain face and nondescript hair and eyes. If her daughter was drawn to the man, it certainly wasn’t for his looks.

“. . . and he is so comfortable to be around, one cannot help but feel he would be kind, like the duke.”

A pregnant silence followed as mother and daughter contemplated the blissful thought of a kind husband. At last Deborah had to intrude some reality into their wishful thinking. “If Mr. Warner were heir to Harwood’s title and riches, I would positively throw you at his head, but—”

“Perhaps he
is
the duke’s heir. Perhaps that is why the duke is grooming him for a career in politics?”

“Far from it. The duke has a younger brother, who has two sons.”

“
I
don’t care,” Jennifer whispered mournfully.

“Nor do I, as you well know. A modest establishment for you, if it included a kind husband, is worth far more to me than three fortunes would be. But you also know that your Uncle Vincent would never consider as a suitor for you a man who lacked both fortune
and
title. So it would be kindest to treat Mr. Warner, who clearly admires you, with politeness but nothing more.

“Come, do not look so down-pin. As the season progresses, you will meet many other young men of the
ton.
What about that young Lord Threlbourne?”

***

While these conversations were going on in the Harwood and Cornwall households, Henry Fortesque was shuffling a number of tradesmen’s bills and recording them on a much-abused sheet of paper. Alexander Meade was vigorously polishing his boots. An open bottle of brandy stood at Henry’s elbow.

“Heard that Brummel used champagne for that. Shall I purchase some champagne, Alex?”

“With what, Fort? Thought it was bellows to mend with you.” Alex didn’t look up, intent upon his task. “Besides, probably all a hum. I think the secret is in the buffing.”

“Keep practicing. You’ll make a damn fine valet one day. Think I may take you on once I’m safely wed to the pretty beanpole.”

“Sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

“Very! But I must get my hands on some funds to launch a campaign. Blast!” Fort threw the much-mended pen across the table.

“Watch it! Don’t splatter ink on my uniform. I hope to sell it for a good price.”

“Sell?” Fort turned around in his chair, brandy glass halfway to his lips.

“Selling out. Told you so, but you’ve been too busy ciphering to listen. I’m sick of dancing attendance on the Prince Regent—that gross, self-indulgent old man! Sick of town life in general. I’m either going to marry well enough to retire to the life of a country gentleman, or go to India and try if I can’t shake a few rubies out of a maharaja.”

“Or perhaps a maharani? Isn’t that what they call the lady nabobs?” Henry perked up. “An excellent idea. I shall do the same.”

“You? Go to India? I was only jesting about the rubies, Fort. Those who go to India have to be willing to learn trade and be skillful at it. The days of looting the country are behind us.”

“Trade!” Henry visibly shuddered. “Pah! Never. But perhaps I will sell out, too. Doubtless get enough from selling my commission, my kit, and my string of horses, to mount a credible assault on Lady Jennifer.”

“Assault! Poor child.”

“Don’t mean anything by the military metaphor, as you well know. Only that mother isn’t going to give her child to a bankrupt. Must outrun the bailiffs until after the wedding. Or be able to finance an elopement.”

Alexander looked up sharply from his boots. “I hope you are jesting!”

“Not at all. I’ll do whatever it takes to avoid Newgate. She won’t suffer by it. I’ll be an indulgent husband, you’ll see.”

Alex rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. “Self-indulgent is more like it.”

Suddenly Henry was serious. “Don’t you put a spoke in my wheel, Alex, or I’ll contrive to return the favor. The little blond Venus might look at you with stars in her eyes, but her father is awake to all suits. Staunch Tory that he is, he mightn’t like a future son-in-law who admires William Cobbet, thinks William Godwin is a great philosopher, and regularly attends Lord Langley’s salon.”

Alexander frowned and stood up. “I don’t mean to deliberately sabotage your courtship, Fort. You’d make no worse husband than many another. But I won’t stand idly by and allow you to hurt Jennifer or any other young lady of the
ton
, as an elopement surely would do. Nor is there any need to do so. You’ve a title and a tidy fortune to inherit. I don’t doubt you’ll find matchmaking mamas swarming all over you once it is seen that you mean to take a wife. As for my politics, Harwood hasn’t taken his seat in Lords in years—doubt he cares a fig for politics.”

Fort stood, too, a little unsteadily, and forced a conciliating grin. “Then let us drink to one another’s success, my friend, and no more strife.”

Alex poured a small splash of brandy into a glass and touched it to Henry’s in agreement, though not without some misgivings.

***

A very different sort of conference was taking place between Lord Morton and his two sons. Harvey and Newton had been ordered by their sire to present themselves in the family town house no later than midnight to discuss the morning’s snub by the duke and Lady Cornwall.