Lady Hathaway's House Party (21 page)

Kay espied them across the room, and their smiles and easy manner toward each other told her the story before she reached them. “Well, it’s about time you two started showing some sense,” she said, her worry lending a sharp tone to her voice.

“Are we to get nothing but abuse?” Oliver asked his wife. “Really, I think the whole group is against marriage. It is the wrong group for us, is it not?”

“It certainly is, Ollie,” Belle assured him. “Kay, aren’t you going to congratulate us?”

“Congratulations,” Kay said, and kissed the bride. Really, Belle looked very like a bride, in her white gown and wreath of smiles.

Lizzie could contain her impatience no longer. “So it’s to be a match,” she said bluntly, nudging her way into the circle.

“You’re a year behind the times,” Ollie told her. “It was a match last season.’’

“A rematch, I mean.”

“Yes, like Belcher and Gentleman Jackson, we are to be rematched and have at each other again,” Ollie replied, naming a famous pair of boxers.”

“Ha ha, a very apt comparison,” Lizzie cackled. That would be worth repeating. “Do you go to London directly? May we look for you next week?”

“You may look for us all season, ma’am, without finding us,” he replied.

“You go to Belwood then?” the inquisitive gossip-monger persisted. They nodded. “We will miss you, Avondale.”

“You’ll find someone else to pester.” He smiled politely, then turned his shoulder on her. “How is the bread and jam holding out, Kay? Any chance of a bite?”

The ham and cheese were hurried forth, and the hungry guests gorged themselves on this humble fare. While awaiting its arrival, Belle stole away from Oliver long enough to whisper in Marnie Delford’s ear the tidings of her reconciliation.

“Darling, splendid! We’ll see you in London soon, then?”

“No, you will see us at Belwood soon. We aren’t going to London this year. You must come to us. Not too soon, however,” Belle added. “We owe ourselves a honeymoon.”

“I wondered you didn’t go there last year.”

“We did everything wrong last year, but this time we mean to do better.”

The news of the Avondales’ reconciliation circulated swiftly through the crowd. Even Signora Travalli, with some peculiar sixth sense, seemed to realize there was cause for rejoicing, and pranced forth to jabber her felicitations on them.

“Thank you.
Grazie,”
Oliver said. The fatal one attempt at Italian unleashed excited volumes, till it was borne in on the foreigner that it was the extent of his Italian vocabulary.

At last the evening was over; the neighbors left, and the guests who were to remain overnight began yawning and making their way to the staircase, the Avondales amongst them.

Oliver took Belle to her door, and in a fit of shyness left her there. He had to go to his own room to prepare for bed. His valet had a bottle of brandy and a glass waiting for him, and silently pointed them out after his lordship was into his dressing gown.

“Help yourself to a shot,” Oliver said, but before doing so, the valet began turning down the bed. “And you can save yourself that job too, old man.” Not by a flicker in his lip line did the valet display any emotion at this telling speech.

“No congratulations? Is everyone afraid of me?” Avondale asked, staring at his servant, who had been with him forever and had never expressed verbally the least interest in his goings-on, though he was privy to more secrets than anyone else.

“No, your grace,” the servant answered.

“Don’t act it, then,” Oliver said, which sent the servant scurrying off with his cravat and shirt in his hand.

With some slight misapprehension and a heart a little unsteady, Avondale tapped at the adjoining door, and was admitted. Belle had on her night dress and a pretty blue peignoir. There was some natural constraint between them. “I came to talk,” Oliver said, and felt suddenly as bashful as a schoolboy.

“Yes, we have to decide about leaving,” Belle answered breathlessly, pretending she was not as nervous as a kitten.

“What time shall we set out tomorrow?”

“We had better leave early. I must go home to Easthill first, and tell Papa. And have my trunks packed and so on.”

“I’ve never been to Easthill.”

“We can stay a few days if you like.”

“No! I mean, I’d like to get right on home, as soon as possible.”

“All right. If we get up early we can make it in one day.”

“Yes. We’d better get to bed, then. I mean, you and I. I mean—I didn’t mean—” He stopped before becoming totally stuck in this morass.

“Yes?” she asked, laughing at his embarrassment. Her arrogant duke, stammering like a greenhorn.

“I wasn’t expected to stay away tonight, was I?”

“I thought you might like to talk a little,” she answered unhelpfully.

“Time for some of that sweet talk I promised myself,” he said in a tone rapidly recovering normalcy.

“A sure way to make the tongue cleave to the roof of the mouth, Ollie, to demand talk.”

“You used to call me ‘Ollie’ before we got married. I became ‘Oliver’ on the day of our wedding. Did you realize that? Then I further sunk to ‘Avondale,’ and occasionally even ‘milord.’ I wanted to
shake
you,” he said, and gave her a slight, vestigial shake, tightening his hands on her shoulders.

“Lacking
polish,
my dear!” she chided mockingly.

“To hell with polish, my dear!” he declared, and enfolding her in his arms began a series of embraces that were quite primitive and utterly lacking in polish, but acceptable enough for all that.

Chapter Sixteen

Everyone slept in late after the rout, which people kept calling a ball. Pierre recovered from whatever had ailed him—not the flu, or he wouldn’t have been up and about so soon—and concocted a delectable meal that might be called breakfast or lunch, according to one’s whim. Kay toyed with the idea of calling it lunch fast or brunch, and setting a new style. It consisted of a fresh fruit compote to get the juices flowing, followed by a mixed grill, and all the buns, toast and coffee anyone could consume. They consumed a good deal, and seemed to be in fine spirits.

She was in good spirits herself. She had accomplished a stunning coup in affecting a reconciliation between the Avondales. No one would ever believe she hadn’t asked them both to Ashbourne on purpose, and as such a success had come from it, she would not deny it so very strenuously.

Already Lady Dempster was chucking her elbow and calling her a sly minx, and writhing with impatience to be the first out the door to London to spread the rumor. But she hated to leave before they came down, and she could tell everyone how they looked that morning. She was working the whole weekend into a story and needed her closing episode. Then too she was a good deal curious to see whether the Italian screecher went back to town with Mr. Higgins in his carriage, and to relay this intelligence to the other lady concerned.

Before long she had her view of Avondale and his lady descending the stairs arm in arm, smiling and looking like newlyweds. Her woman was on guard upstairs to see whether they both issued from the same doorway, a fact of major importance and one she really ought to have hung around to see for herself. They sat together at the table, and she was kept busy to try to discover whether they weren’t holding hands beneath the cloth. A dropped napkin that she stooped to pick up discovered that they were—commoners! Belle Anderson would change that man into a country squire inside of a year. Already she had talked him into passing up a season, an unheard-of thing for the Duke of Avondale.

She would have to remember to twit Honey Traveller next time she met her, and ask her if everything had worked out at Doncaster, about the money George had “borrowed” and all. That morsel heard through the keyhole had been nearly forgotten with all the other interesting things she had heard. Fischer and Jackson—she’d twist their noses. She was especially sorry she had missed the reconciliation scene between the Avondales. It must have been well worth seeing from the way they were carrying on this morning. She would not have expected to see
him
competing with the likes of the Delfords and Sloanes in rolling his eyes at his own wife, but he was doing it. What would become of society if every man took to running after his wife?

La Travalli floated down to the table and started up with her pointing and laughing again. She’d give a pony to know what the foreigner was saying. Higgins pretending not to look her way at all, of course. He fooled no one with his stiff upper lip and his lecherous eyes. At last Lady Dempster could contain her impatience no longer, and after warning Lord Eldon to see whether Higgins offered the Italian a lift to town, she was off.
“Au revoir,
darling. Marvelous party, but then yours always are.”

Others too began leaving, the Avondales saying they were already starting later than they had intended, but everyone had slept in after the ball.

“Goodbye, Kay. It was a wonderful party,” Belle said, kissing her cheek.

“Your best ever, cousin. You outdid yourself,” Oliver added his thanks. “And I won’t forget your books and glass.”

“Feel free to drop in any time you need a referee, or an interpreter.”

“Don’t say that. You’ll never see us,” Oliver replied.

“Oh yes she will,” Belle contradicted. “I have
carte blanche
to tell you everything, Ollie, and if you want to hear the sweet, you must take the bitter with it. We are bound to come to cuffs.”

“I love this walking stick you gave me, Belle,” he said, beating it against his palm and eyeing her askance. “It would make a good wife-tamer, don’t you think?”

“He pretends he is a doctor,” Belle explained the gold knob to Kay. “It is really only that he has a taste for the overly ornate and wants to be putting gold and jewels on everything he owns.”

“You won’t let him put them on
you.”

“You don’t
own
me!” She lifted the stick from his hands and swung it carelessly as they walked to the carriage.

The others left in groups. “Wonderful party, Kay. You’ve done it again,” from Ralph Ponsonby, while Marion smiled her mute thanks.

“Thank you. So kind of you to come.”

And to go. Go on, get out. There was Travalli going off with Higgins. Good riddance, you pest. You were more than ten pounds worth of trouble, and not one pound worth of singing. Ah ha, Eldon sees what you’re up to, Mr. Higgins. You’ll hear about this stunt before you’re long in London. You can kiss your fine lady goodbye. Maybe I’ll invite the two of you and let you make it up. Then again maybe I won’t. You were small enough addition to the party.

At last she was alone. She went to the green saloon to peer about for spilled food and drinks, and saw a large stain on the petit-point chair by the grate. There’d be more wreckage upstairs. Someone would have dropped candle grease on a carpet or bedspread. Savages. She pulled the soiled chair to a sofa and used it for a footrest, laying her head back against the cushions.

It hadn’t been such a bad party, really. Poor Arnold had got beaten up, and Pierre had spoiled the main dinner. La Travalli had been a nuisance and Honey Traveller another. Lizzie Dempster was lucky to have escaped without Oliver’s sticking a knife through her and Mr. Higgins was likely in the process of ruining a promising career, but really it had been rather fun. She’d have another party soon. Drop Raffles a note and see how his flu was coming on. She
did
like Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles.

Copyright © 1980 by Joan Smith

Originally published by Fawcett Coventry in January, 1980

Electronically published in 2004 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-4228

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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.