Kasey Michaels (12 page)

Sophie was delighted, both with the day and with her company. The sun was bright, even though the air still had more than a bit of a nip in it. She laughed out loud as an unexpected breeze caught them as the landau moved away from the protection of buildings and into the park, nearly costing Sophie her wonderful new hat.

“Oh, this is lovely!” she exclaimed, sitting up very straight and looking around her at all the nurserymaids and their charges walking the paths, at the gentlemen, on horseback or strolling about, swinging their canes and acting very much like young colts just turned out into the fields for the first time. There was color everywhere. In the bright green new leaves, the flowers lining the paths, the ladies’ gowns, the gentlemen’s canary yellow waistcoats, the brightly colored carriages and curricles and high-perch phaetons.

And the air smelled so good. Delicious. Whenever the wind shifted Sophie smelled something else new and exciting. The aroma of hot meat pies and currant pastries. The heady fragrance of pollen-rich flowers. The smell of horse, of freshly turned dirt, of chimney smoke; the odd attraction of Sir Wallace’s wine-sweet breath, even the tangy scent of tobacco that lingered on Lord Lorimar’s clothing.

How she had missed the company of gentlemen!

“Lud, Miss Winstead,” Isadora Waverley prompted from the facing seat—she and Lady Gwendolyn were, of course, ensconced on the front-facing seat, so that Sophie had to content herself with seeing where she had been rather than where she was going, “a word of advice, if I might? You’re not to gawk, my dear. It smacks of the country miss, you understand.”

Sophie dragged her gaze from the rows of distant rooftops and the comical sight of the dozens of variously shaped chimney pots that poked against the sky. “Oh, Miss Waverley, you are
so
right!” she exclaimed, taking her gloved hands from her muff and spreading them wide—nearly clipping the grinning Sir Wallace on his shiny red nose. “I’m such a silly goose. Why, my jaw has been at half cock ever since we started out from Wimbledon, Desiree and I, so that I shouldn’t be surprised if I end up with a sparrow flying into my open mouth. I have never seen the city, you understand—and find it all so exciting, so beautiful. To have seen London is to have seen the world, yes?”

Lord Lorimar bent forward to retrieve Sophie’s muff from the floor of the landau, handing it back to her with a flourish even as she thanked him as if he had just presented her with a diamond the size of Sir Wallace’s nose. “You have seen but a small part of our fair metropolis, Miss Winstead,” he told her. “However, I would consider it an honor and a privilege to show you more of it.”

Sophie was about to agree, then bit her lip, looking to Miss Waverley. “Would—would that be all right?”

Isadora smiled her usual cool, gracious smile. “I should think that Lord Lorimar might have better presented his invitation to Lady Gwendolyn, my dear, and asked her permission before approaching you, but I see no reason to withhold such an innocent treat. Lady Gwendolyn?”

“Me? You’re asking me?” Lady Gwendolyn frowned. “Shouldn’t he be asking Bramwell? She’s
his
ward. That’s a lovely brooch you’re wearing, Miss Waverley. I do so admire garnets. May I have it?”

Isadora looked at her ladyship in some shock. “May you have it? Lud, my lady, I think not. It was a gift from my father.” She looked at the now crestfallen Lady Gwendolyn queerly, then seemed to remember that the woman was her betrothed’s aunt. “But I do thank you for the compliment, my lady. Truly.”

“You like garnets, Aunt Gwendolyn?” Sophie interposed quickly, seeing her ladyship’s distress. “I have dozens—more than any one person could wear in a month of Seasons. Brooches, necklaces, bracelets, rings. When we return to Portland Square we shall perch ourselves on your bed, munch sugarplums, and paw through the pile of stones together. And you shall have your pick of the lot to keep—as my gift to you for being so wonderfully kind to this undeserving stranger. All right?”

“Such a nice girl,” Lady Gwendolyn cooed, still staring at Miss Waverley’s brooch. “Bramwell is fortunate in his ward.”

Miss Waverley’s head moved a fraction, as if she were trying not to react to having been slapped, even as she protectively closed her fingers around the coveted piece of jewelry. “Not his ward, Lady Gwendolyn,” she corrected kindly but firmly as Sophie watched from beneath lowered lashes. “But only Miss Winstead’s sponsor for the length of the Season. Nothing more permanent than that.”

“Oh, heavens, no, nothing more permanent than that,” Sophie agreed, giggling. “I shouldn’t wish to be a burden to the dear duke.”

“I can envision the sun tumbling from the sky, Miss Winstead,” Lord Lorimar broke in feelingly. “I can imagine the birds mute, the stars falling dark, the grass at our feet turning purple. But I cannot, Miss Winstead, ever imagine you being any sort of burden.”

“Oh-ho—there he goes!” Sir Wallace exclaimed, and Sophie turned to him in time to see him rolling his eyes heavenward. “Can you swim, Miss Winstead? It’s getting to be dashed deep water in here.”

“Stubble it, Wally,” Lord Lorimar spat from between clenched teeth, so that Sophie smiled brightly at the ladies sitting across from her, then shrugged, as if she had no idea why gentlemen acted the way they did, silly things.

“Do you know what I should like?” she chirped as the landau stopped, for the curricle in front of them had come to a halt on the pathway, one of its wheels obviously having worked loose. “I should like to get down and walk for a while, that’s what I should like. Is that permissible? Miss Waverley, would you care to take a small stroll?”

“Walk?” Miss Waverley repeated hollowly, as if Sophie had asked her accompaniment on a journey to the moon. “Lud, just the thought! But the dew—your hem? No, I shouldn’t think I’d like to do that.”

Sir Wallace had already flung open the low door. “I’ll accompany you, Miss Winstead,” he offered eagerly, holding up his hand to her. “They can just catch us up on their next circuit around the Park.”

Before Lord Lorimar could do more than whisk himself across the seat as Sophie jumped down, Sir Wallace had slammed the door shut once more and called to the driver to move off around the disabled equipage as they were holding up the coach behind them. Sophie watched as the duke glared down at Sir Wallace, then followed off after the landau, leaving her and the shiny-nosed schemer alone together beside the pathway.

“My congratulations, Sir Wallace,” Sophie told him as he offered her his arm and she slipped hers around it, leaning against him as they made their way across the grass. “I fear I would never have been able to convince the ladies that it is much more fun to be walking on such a lovely day as this instead of sitting all prim and proper and being driven about like melons in the back of a wagon.”

“And twice the fun to be walking rather than to be stuck listening to the drivel that pours out of Lorrie’s mouth,” Sir Wallace grumbled, then brightened. “Would you like to pick some flowers, Miss Winstead? It isn’t strictly allowed, but the Park is fairly thin of company, and I saw some posies back there a while ago that would look very fetching tucked into your, um, into your...”

“Buttonhole?” Sophie suggested helpfully, raising her muff-covered arm to indicate the top button of her cherry red ensemble.

She watched as bright color ran into Sir Wallace’s cheeks, staining them nearly as deeply as his shiny nose. “
Harrumph
!” he said, coughing into his fist. “Buttonhole, Miss Winstead. That would be it. Precisely that. Buttonhole. Yes, yes. Buttonhole.”

“Some buttercups for the buttonhole,” Sophie recommended as she tugged on his arm, leading him toward an area of the fairly ragged spring grass where the wildflowers had not yet fallen to the scythe. “That way we will not fall afoul of the law, if the flowers are considered the property of the Crown, yes? I should like to see as much of London as I can, Sir Wallace, but I don’t believe I would find the inside of the local guardhouse at all edifying. You drink, Sir Wallace, don’t you, poor dear?”

She danced away from him then, leaving him to stand openmouthed and dazed at her last words. By the time he had caught up with her she was sitting on her skirts in the dewy grass, busily filling her lap with creamy yellow buttercups. “Forgive me. I can’t have heard you aright, Miss Winstead. What—what did you say?” he asked, dropping to his knees beside her, which put paid to his pantaloons, not that he seemed to notice.

“Oh, but you did hear me aright, Sir Wallace.” Sophie picked up a half dozen blooms and threaded them into the top buttonhole of Sir Wallace’s waistcoat. “I smelled wine on your breath,” she explained, looking steadily into his sad, puppy brown eyes. “And, I believe, just the hint of cherry brandy, yes? I have always enjoyed the sweetness of cherry brandy when I was allowed the occasional sip. It makes the insides all warm and comfortable and cosseted. Rather as if everything in the world was rosy and wonderful. But to have imbibed so much this early in the day? That can’t be good, now can it? There,” she said, patting his waistcoat before resting back on her heels, admiring her handiwork. “Now, don’t you look handsome?”

“Ladies ain’t supposed to drink cherry brandy,” Sir Wallace said, then winced, as if he had spoken before he could think. But, as she had already supposed he would, he opened his mouth yet again, and went on to dig himself deeper into a pit of unfortunate wonderings. “I suppose your mother drank cherry brandy, and fed it to you as well. She did lots of things ladies ain’t supposed to do. And had a lot of fun doing them, I’ve no doubt. But you really shouldn’t drink it anymore, Miss Winstead. Ratafia. That’s the way to go. Ratafia, the occasional glass of wine, I suppose, if someone offers it and the other ladies are drinking it. And lemonade. You can’t go wrong with lemonade.”

“I’ll try to remember that, thank you. Why do you drink, Sir Wallace?” Sophie asked him as she tucked a small nosegay of buttercups into her own buttonhole. “Uncle Horace drank because his wife was a shrew. That’s what
Maman
said, and she must have been, because the woman finally came at Uncle Horace one night with his own campaign sword.”

She grinned up at him. “They locked her away for a bit after that,
Maman
told me, where she couldn’t hurt anyone. But Uncle Horace was much happier even after they let her out again, and didn’t drink half so much. Although I must say he still liked his cherry brandy. We were always careful to keep some on hand for when he called.”

Sir Wallace sat back on his heels as if trying to distance himself from Sophie, wagging one finger back and forth in front of his nose. “Oh, no,” he said on a nervous chuckle. “Oh, no, no, no! You’re not talking about Horace Autley, are you now, Miss Winstead, him who’s been dead since Waterloo? My
uncle
, Horace Autley?”

Sophie opened her eyes very wide, then blinked several times, just as if she didn’t already know everything she was about to ask. She really didn’t remember Uncle Horace very well, but
Maman’
s journals had been very detailed, very precise on the man and his family—complete to a shade as a matter of fact. “Uncle Horace was
your
uncle, too? Not that he was
really
my uncle, but I called him Uncle Horace, you understand. Oh, but that’s famous, Sir Wallace. He would have been your mother’s brother?”

He shook his head, dismissing that notion. “Uncle Horace was married to the shrew. Um, that is, I mean to say that Uncle Horace was married to my mother’s sister. Her twin, actually. Alike as two peas in a pod they are in every way, now that I think on it.” He shivered in the bright sunshine. “Except that m’mother wasn’t ever locked up. And you’re right. She’s not anymore, you know. Locked up, that is. My aunt, you understand. Lives with m’mother.”

“Oh, dear.” Sophie pushed out her bottom lip as she laid a hand on Sir Wallace’s forearm, looking at him tenderly. And then she believed herself to have a blazing moment of insight. “Just as you still live with her, don’t you?”

She thought the man would break down and cry, “Yes! Yes, I do!” he exclaimed, laying his own hand over hers. “I’m her only family now besides Aunt Millicent, what with my papa turning up his toes nearly a dozen years ago. They neither of them feels safe nor comfortable living in an all-female domicile, so I stay on. She still hasn’t forgiven Bonaparte for taking me off to war, you understand.”

“What a dear, good son you are, Sir Wallace,” Sophie soothed, allowing him to help her to her feet, a shower of buttercups spilling to the ground as she shook out her skirts. “Although I’m sure the arrangement is pleasing to your mother and aunt, it’s not one free of difficulties, yes? I imagine cherry brandy, among other spirits, helps to make you feel all warm and comfortable and cosseted.”

“Difficulties? They’re enough to grind a man straight into the ground, the pair of them. I could drink gallons—and that’s just at breakfast!” Sir Wallace exploded, then clapped a hand over his mouth and stared at Sophie. Slowly, he drew his hand away and smiled at her. “My God, Miss Winstead. Aren’t you the downy one.”

Sophie smiled in genuine happiness. The world was so simple, if one just took the time to listen, to learn, to look. “Do you know, Sir Wallace, that Uncle Horace found that a stout, strong butler and a few strapping footmen can make even the most nervous woman feel more secure in her surroundings? Handsome footmen, of a certain age, shall we say, can even be a comfort to fragile ladies fearful of being alone through the dark and lonely nights. So comforting, in fact, that one could think, couldn’t one, that they might not even miss the presence of a devoted son and nephew—or require it, for that matter?”

Sir Wallace narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “Uncle Horace died nearly penniless, so that Aunt Millicent was forced to move in with us. She’s always going about, lamenting the loss of her butler, whom she had to let go. Goes on and on about it, when she’s not kicking poor old Peterson, the family majordomo, and calling him useless as a third thumb. Miss Winstead, you’re never saying that... and that m’aunt... that my uncle
arranged
—
my God
, what a thought! And my
mother
? That she might... that she might be interested in... that she’d even
think
to... But that’s, that’s—”