June Calvin (9 page)

Her mother turned Davida’s face to the light. “Look at your poor bruised mouth. That brute!”

“Are you sure he did no more than kiss you? You may tell me everything, Davida.” Her father’s voice was ominous in its calm.

“Truly, Father, that is all.”

“I’ll break his aristocratic nose. Calls himself a gentleman.”

“He said he would offer for me, but I don’t want him to.” Davida felt it necessary to soothe her father’s wrath for his own safety’s sake. She wanted no duel to result from this day’s mishaps. “He only kissed me once, but I didn’t like it, not at all. You won’t make me marry him, will you?”

“Certainly not. He’s obviously not the man for you.” Striving for a lighter note, her father added, “Just as well. He has no title, and I do fancy calling you ‘my lady.”

“Oh, Papa.” Davida sighed against her father’s chest as he patted her back. “I’m afraid I’m going to be an ape-leader. There was no one I liked better than Harrison Curzon. I really thought I’d found my husband.”

“Tch. You like young Pelham well enough.”

“He doesn’t count, though. He’s going to m-m-m-marry Elspeth. He l-l-loves her.” She jumped up and ran from the room.

“I thought that was the way the wind blew,” her father observed.

“Much good it will do her,” her mother sighed. “I’ll go up to her.”

“He ain’t shackled yet.”

“Oh, Charles, do face facts.” Lady Elizabeth stalked from the room, her frustration clear in her set face.

“I am,” Sir Charles muttered as the door closed behind her. “And fact is, whether she knows it, or wants it, our daughter is head over heels for Lord Pelham.”

Chapter Ten

D
avida kept to her room for three days after the picnic. She was indisposed, her callers were told, and it was true. She’d caught a mild cold, and was content to lie abed drinking hot possets and reading, in a desultory fashion, the latest of Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels. That she also had some bruises and a swollen, sore mouth, none needed to know.

Not even her father knew the extent to which she’d been bruised in her struggle to escape from Harrison Curzon’s curricle. Her mother had agreed to keep silent from the same fear that Davida had—that Sir Charles would assume much worse behavior on Curzon’s part than had actually occurred, and insist upon a duel or a marriage.

Almost equally bruised by the frightening incident was Davida’s usually resilient and optimistic spirit. She felt she would never want to trust herself alone with a man again, and that her search for a husband had ended once and for all, in dismal failure.

In spite of her insistence that he not do so, Harrison Curzon called on Sir Charles the morning after the picnic to ask for Davida’s hand in marriage. He was firmly denied permission to pay his addresses. His attempts to get around Davida’s father by appealing to his more sophisticated knowledge of a man’s passions met with no success.

“Rushed your fences, my boy,” Sir Charles growled. “And rough handling, too. Some women like it, I suppose, but most don’t. Certainly not the thing for my Davida.”

Curzon looked down, his mouth tight. “I know it, sir. Do you think I have any chance of recovering?”

“I doubt it, and I don’t mind saying I hope not. My Davida is a spirited gel, but sensitive. Don’t think you’re right for her. Her mother didn’t think so from the first. Women sometimes seem to know these things.

“Fact is, I think you’d regret it if you married her. You want a different sort of a female, I think.”

Curzon shook his head. “I want her. But truth to tell, I’ve half a notion she favors someone else. In which case, I’m well out of it.”

Sir Charles did not pretend ignorance. He laid a finger aside his nose. “As to that, she doesn’t really understand her own mind, I’m guessing, and better that way, since that ignorant bantling hasn’t the sense to return her feelings.”

“Yes,” Curzon mused. “He seems set on Elspeth, who’ll bear-lead him and make him miserable.”

Unable to reconcile himself to failure, Curzon tried again. “Will you permit me to call on Davida, to attempt at least to regain her friendship?”

Sir Charles had his own reasons for agreeing. An abrupt and obvious coldness between the two would lead to talk, and it would be best to avoid becoming scandal broth if at all possible. “I shall speak to her. She was quite shocked by your behavior, though. You must give me your word of honor that you’ll make no attempt to be private with her without my express knowledge and permission.”

“Agreed.”

They parted on reasonably cordial terms. Sir Charles waited until the next day to discuss with Davida her future relationship with Curzon. He and her mother agreed that outward friendliness was required to prevent talk.

“Papa, I can’t. It makes my knees quake just to think of being near him.”

“Now, Davida, you are not such a milk-and-water miss. I am not asking you to allow the man to court you, merely to be polite to him. Do you want all the tabbies speculating on why you disappeared for several days after the picnic and then would not speak to your former suitor?”

Slowly Davida came around. “I suppose it would not be at all the thing. But I won’t dance with him.”

“I doubt he’ll ask, but if he does, you mustn’t refuse, unless it is a waltz. That I’ll not ask of you.” Her father’s stern voice made Davida turn to her mother for assistance. But Lady Elizabeth was entirely in agreement with her husband. “It would be very noticeable if you were to refuse to dance with him. But I think, Charles, you might attend the first ball or two with us, to keep an eye on things. If he does ask her to waltz . . .”

“I shall call him aside and put the idea out of his head. Now what do you say, Davida?”

“I . . . I shall try, Papa.”

As she lay in her room nursing her cold and her bruises, Davida cast her mind ahead to the remaining month or so of the season without enthusiasm. Even if any new suitors turned up at this late date, she was terrified of the possible results of a hasty courtship. And the possibility of having to dance with Harrison Curzon made her extremely uneasy.

Her father praised Sir Ralph Moreston to her more than once, but she only stared at him unencouragingly. It had suddenly become clear to Davida something of what the physical intimacy of marriage could mean, and she was quite definite that she would not marry Sir Ralph. The very thought of him kissing her was enough to turn her stomach.

She filled some of her time with addressing invitations to her and Sarah’s joint come-out ball, which was just three weeks away. She also made out place cards for the dinner to be held beforehand. The duke had placed one very special and surprising name on the guest list: the Prince Regent. “A duke has a certain noblesse oblige, too, you know,” he had drawled at the girls when informing them that His Royal Highness must be invited.

Neither Davida nor Sarah were at all sure they wanted him to attend. Both were rather intimidated by the thought. As Davida stilled her trembling hand to address his invitation, she consoled herself with the unlikelihood of Prinny’s acceptance. She knew he had been ill quite a bit lately.

Of course, if it were known that the Prince Regent was coming, their ball would be just the complete squeeze that was fashionable. But even this thought didn’t cheer Davida, for she felt that she had met all of the eligible men already, and none of them seemed to be likely suitors. Besides, they had set the ball very late in the season—far too late to begin any new courtship, it seemed to Davida.

“Perhaps I’ll just be an old maid,” she told Sarah fretfully. Sarah had been admitted to her room three days after the picnic with an admonition from Lady Elizabeth to coax her daughter out of her megrims. Sarah had been told a somewhat edited version of the truth, and Davida was careful to wear a long-sleeve wrapper that hid her fading bruises. It was not that she feared Sarah would gossip. She just wasn’t up to telling her all of the details. It would be like living it all over again.

“Silly goose,” Sarah laughed. “You don’t mean that. I know! You can marry my father. He promised he’d offer for you if you came back unattached.” The two girls, sprawled on Davida’s large bed, giggled over this teasing remark the duke had made while Davida and Sarah were showing him some of their new gowns. Then Sarah rolled over on her back and stared up at the canopy. “He looks at you so, I sometimes wonder if he’s just teasing.”

“Sarah!”

“I mean it. Would you mind so much?”

“Well, I warn you, I would be a most strict and repressive stepmama!”

Giggles shook them again, and then it was Davida’s turn to be serious. “Your father is handsome and kind, and not really so terribly old. He is all of twenty years younger than mine.”

“True. He married the day of his majority, and I was born nine months later.”

Both girls laughed, half embarrassed by their half knowledge of how this might have come about.

“So he’s not quite forty, Davie. It’s not an unheard-of difference.”

“No,” Davida drawled uncertainly. “But I don’t love him. I like him, but . . .”

“Oh, I’m sure my father is too old for
love
, though. I mean, isn’t he?”

The two girls looked at one another in perplexity. “Then why would he want to marry?” Davida puzzled over this.

“For companionship, I suppose. He knows I’ll marry soon. As soon as Gregory comes up to scratch.” Sarah’s round face took on a militant mien. Her heart had been set on marrying her second cousin and nearby neighbor, Gregory Allensby, since she was fourteen, and this diffident youth seemed devoted to her, too, but as yet had not declared himself. Sarah had hoped he would propose to prevent her going off for a season, but he hadn’t. And at any rate her father would not have let her accept until she had had a season in London. She was biding her time until they returned home.

“I suppose your father will be lonely, a little. But you won’t live far away if you marry Gregory.”

“If!” Sarah protested.

Davida laughed. “But truly, Sarah, I’m not at all certain I want to marry, anymore, and besides, I’m sure the duke was just teasing me. Though it’s so hard to tell what he means, he has such an ironical way of speaking.”

“I almost wish he wasn’t teasing,” Sarah mused. “If you married my father . . .”

“And you married Greg . . .”

“We’d always be together,” they both finished, laughing.

“Anyway, Davie, do get up and go for a drive with me. You barely have a sniffle now, and I’m dying to look at the latest fashions.”

They spent a pleasant afternoon shopping, and Davida felt ready to emerge from her self-imposed exile, so the family went to the opera that evening to hear Herr Mozart’s exquisite
Magic Flute.
She was reasonably certain not to encounter Mr. Curzon, who had confessed that he cared little for the opera.

Davida dressed with her usual care, even though she had the discouraging feeling that it didn’t really matter. She wore a pale plum-colored satin gown with a high waist and low neckline. The small bruises Curzon’s fingers had left on her shoulders were covered by a long, soft shawl around her shoulders. Her long gloves covered the faded marks where she had twisted her wrists free of his grasp to escape his carriage.

Her maid had swept her hair up off her forehead with a pearl circlet, displaying the widow’s peak which Mrs. Burrell had attributed to her Ancaster lineage. Her pearls went very well with this dress. In spite of her megrims, she felt returning self-confidence as she intercepted admiring looks while they made their way to their seats.

During intermission their box was agreeably filled with young men, including Gilbert Threlbourne. “Lord Threlbourne,” Davida greeted him gaily, “I see you have survived your curricle wreck. How are you?”

“Don’t ‘lord, me’ Davida Gresham. It is all your fault my curricle is smashed and my cattle knocked up.”

“My fault?” Davida felt a little twinge of guilt, but looked as innocent as she could, batting her eyes theatrically.

“Yes, baggage. If Curzon hadn’t been in such a pelter to impress you . . .”

“No fair,” Davida protested, blushing and wishing the subject hadn’t come up.

“He drove like a madman. Ran me right off the road. But I see the fair maiden was unimpressed.” Gilbert winked at her.

Now what did he mean by that? Had word of her refusal already gotten out? Davida wondered. “Oh, I was vastly impressed that three young men would make such sapskulls of themselves.”

“Now who’s being unfair! No, it’s your fault, and so, you must go driving with me tomorrow in my new curricle and admire my new team excessively.”

Davida agreed, glad for the friendship of this likeable red-haired, freckled-faced peer. Ever since he had told her of his understanding with his cousin, she had been relieved to know that he wasn’t making any push to engage her affections. His family had long sought the marriage to his cousin for dynastic reasons, but Gilbert was pleased with their choice. He had told Davida, laughing, “She has as many freckles as I have, and hair just as carroty, so we shall suit very well.”

It was a new and welcome experience to have a man who was just a friend, and at this point in her life she felt that she needed all the friends she could obtain.

“Oh, I say, Pelham won’t like that at all.” Gilbert looked over Davida’s head to a box directly across from theirs. Davida turned to see Lady Elspeth entering on the arm of Viscount Whitham.

“Then Monty and Elspeth are still quarreling? I had hoped they would have made it up by now.”

“Don’t know. They’ve both been playing least in sight since the picnic, but it looks as though Monty is still in the suds with Elspeth, don’t it? She’d best be careful. She’ll push him too far one day.”

The bell for the next act interrupted, and Gilbert bowed to her and left with the others. Davida tried to listen to the music, but found it difficult as she observed Elspeth and Whitham. There was something very possessive about his manner toward her tonight, and Elspeth was looking particularly smug. Davida was trying to feel unhappy for Monty’s sake, but not entirely succeeding.

The next morning Davida went down to breakfast just as her father was finishing. He had a peculiar look on his face, almost triumphant, as he tossed the
Morning Post
to her. “Item in the announcements you may find interesting,” was all he would say as he kissed her on the cheek and exited, but she could swear she heard him chuckle as he strode from the room.

It didn’t take her long to find that Lord and Lady Howard were “pleased to announce the betrothal of their daughter, Lady Elspeth Howard, to Donald Endicott, Viscount Whitham.”

Davida felt her heart pounding heavily in her chest.
Poor Monty
, she thought, fighting down the feeling of elation that was trying to break free. She knew his heart would be broken. As his friend, she should be truly sorry, but she very much began to fear that Curzon had the right of it. She had strong feelings for Lord Pelham, and now she could admit they were more than just friendship.
Besides
, she justified her thoughts,
I don’t really think they’d suit. She doesn’t seem to appreciate him as she ought.

She allowed herself a daydream of a time, perhaps in a year or two, when Pelham might have recovered from his disappointment. Perhaps he would begin to see Davida as something more than a friend, and court her in form. How delicious that would be.

But her more sensible side told her that it was all a hum. Elspeth’s behavior at the picnic, when she had thought Pelham injured, had revealed a deep caring. Doubtless she would repent of this engagement and cry off so that she could marry Monty.

“Davida, wherever are your wits? I’ve said good morning twice, now.”