Lady Madeline's Folly (10 page)

Eskott did not discontinue his visits, despite the second rejection of his offer of marriage. He came shortly after the new year to crow over the success of his house party.

“You should have been there, Maddie. You would have had an inner track with the new beau of London. Byron was a tremendous hit. A walking Apollo, and a demmed talented one too. The ladies are all running mad for him.”

“He gave you some stiff competition, did he?” she asked, undismayed. Such matters as new peers of talent and beauty usually excited sharp interest from her. Eskott was curious to notice her lack of concern. “How did your do go?” he asked.

“Fine, very nice. No lavish balls nor anything of that sort. A quiet party.”

“I expect you were dull as ditch water, without the boy there.”

“Henry did manage to come to us for the latter part of the holiday,” she informed him with a satisfied smile.

“Did he indeed? The mama recovered then, I assume?”

“Yes, she did.”

“I hope the young lady he jilted at home did likewise,” he told her with a sapient look.

Madeline snapped to attention. “More scandal-mongering behind his back? What did you do, send spies along to check up on him, Eskott?”

“No, I am not so interested as all that. Merely I have friends from the vicinity who were home for the holidays. They tell me he broke off with some young heiress he was dangling after before he came to London.”

“It is not news to me. If I had known you were so interested in my cousin, I could have told you all about it. He
did
terminate an old affair with an erstwhile lady friend while he was home. Terminated it to their mutual satisfaction, I might add. There was nothing in the nature of a jilting, unless her having taken up with another beau might be called jilting Henry.”

“We must allow it to be inconceivable that any lady of sound mind would jilt Henry,” he replied mockingly. He had to accept her version of the story. She was acquainted with one of the principals, while he had his story second hand, and then only after a good deal of trouble in tracking down anyone from the vicinity of Manchester who knew of the affair. It was difficult for a proud man to be pestering friends for this sort of sordid scandal.

“What had he to say of my other piece of backbiting, the affair of the letter to Neville?”

“He admitted it. He spoke to Neville out of respect for his father, and declined the offer out of respect for common sense.”

“Have you found him a more—er,
sensible
position? You will notice, I hope, that I never suggest the paragon go out and find something for himself.”

“Yes, I am aware of all your little barbs, Eskott. Henry has had many interesting offers.”

“Which of them has he accepted?”

“None. He is presently lending Papa a hand. He is extremely busy at this time, you know. It is a temporary thing only.”

“Planning to rig him out in the family livery?”

“If he joins the family, it will not be as a liveried servant, but as something quite different,” she replied, her good humor causing Eskott to regard her with the utmost suspicion.

He looked for one long, incredulous moment, then threw his head back and laughed. “You ain’t such a grudgeon as that, Maddie, to go hitching yourself to a provincial nobody, who must batten himself on your father. He has neither position, influence, money, nor even sufficient age to attract you.”

“I never had any preference for white hair, actually.
Boys,
you recall, were always my weakness.”

“You are sensible enough to have a preference for something other than a fortune hunter, I hope?”

“Oh yes, I am not slow to turn off all fortune hunters who cross my path.”

“You will be giving him his congé soon then, I expect.”

“Did you come here for the sole purpose of being disagreeable, Eskott? How thoughtful of you. You have done your duty now, and may leave with the knowledge that I am very angry with you.”

“I notice the green eyes are shooting emerald sparks. I have scored a hit, whether you acknowledge it or not. But annoying you was not my only reason for coming. I also want to crow a little. Wellesley’s bid for the P.M.’s job was turned down flat. Looks as if Prinney is planning to dump the Tories after all, eh?”

“Don’t hold your breath waiting. A man could suffocate that way. There isn’t more than a handful of you Whigs he wants—yourself, I might add, not amongst them. If he can’t get the chosen few under Tory leadership, he won’t bother with any of you at all. He will have done his token duty, and will settle down with the old boys for another millennium or so.”

“Ah yes, the gospel according to Saint Perceval,” he said, striking his breast and lowering his head, as though at vespers. “Let me clue you in on the Brougham version. The Tories have all the power, while the Whigs have all the talent. It is only the prince’s monumental stupidity that holds the country back. Of course when a man takes counsel from a lady, what is to be expected? I refer of course to the Old Lady of Manchester Square. Still, I expect your version is accurate, if more savage and cynical than one might expect from a female. The
gentler
sex, we besotted males consider you. I really don’t know why. From Eve down to the present, you are always eager to outwit and betray us.”

“And it is so easy to do, too!” she said, smiling.

While they were still talking, Henry Aldred arrived from having picked up some folders at Westminster. “Good afternoon, Eskott,” he said pleasantly, after first making a bow to Madeline. “Your father wants me to bring him some documents he left at home, but he shan’t need them till this evening. It looks like another night session coming up. I plan to answer these few letters for him before I go back.”

“Can you stay for dinner?” she asked, a smile of pleasure lighting her face.

“I must be back by eight. If we eat early... But you are dining with the Earls this evening, are you not?”

“I’ll cancel that,” she said.

Eskott looked at her, dumbfounded. His little worries that she was beginning to take a more serious than usual interest in her new protégé were suddenly seen to be out of date. She was infatuated with him. The beaming smile that she could not hold in, the willingness to change her plans for him, the very air around the pair spoke of love.

What the haughty beauty could see in the jackanapes was past imagining. A well-shaped head and a well-cut jacket—these were his advantages. She was no young, inexperienced girl either, but a lady who had been on the town long enough to know better. But she looked like a young girl today. A young, radiant girl, very much in love.

“Can’t you sit down and join us for a moment, Aldred?” Eskott invited, noticing from the corner of his eye Maddie’s annoyance. She wanted him to leave, to get her lover to herself.

“I am always happy to meet the opposition,” Henry said lightly, taking up a seat. “I expect there is a deal of disenchantment in your camp these days.”

“Because of the delay in bringing the Whigs into power, you mean?” Eskott asked, surprised, or giving a good simulation of it.

“Delay? He doesn’t mean to bring you into power at all.”

“Is
that
the nonsense they have been feeding you here at the Second Court of St. James? Wait till February, when the restrictions on his powers expire. He’ll have your set out so fast your heads will spin. I cannot imagine why any young man who wishes to get ahead would throw in his lot with the wrong party, especially when his relations have long been Whigs. Neville was very disappointed at your refusing his offer. He had big things in mind for you.”

Aldred looked interested, but with Madeline at his side he said the necessary things. “We’ll hold, Eskott,” he finished, after a little repetition of the Tory gospel.

Eskott laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “Time will tell whether you have not made a grave error. I only know Brougham has had the windows at Ten Downing Street measured for blue drapes, and ordered a new mattress to the bed, for he says he will not lie down in a Tory manger.”

“He’s roasting you, Henry,” Madeline explained. “Pay no heed to Eskott. He only came to annoy me. He has already confessed as much. And you have annoyed me quite enough for one day, milord.”

“Very well then, I shall behave, but I think it an abominable stunt you are playing on your cousin, leading him astray in this manner. They must be hiding all the more secret documents from you, Henry. Of course the Tories are famous for hiding the truth.”

“Is this your notion of behaving?” Madeline inquired.

“My last outburst. I know when I am not wanted. Do you go to Sidmouth’s ball this evening, Maddie?”

“How late will you be working. Henry?” she asked, before giving him her answer.

“Till nine-thirty or ten.”

“Then you will be finished in time to take me. You may look to the doorway around ten-thirty to see us making our grand entrance, Eskott. You are attending, I take it?”

“Certainly I’ll be there.”

“You could go with Lady Margaret, if you don’t want to wait so late for me,” Henry mentioned.

“What, is Meggie in town?” Eskott asked.

“Yes, she returned with us after the holiday. I really cannot imagine why. She doesn’t
go
anywhere, but only stomps up and down halls and stairs, rattling the china and frowning at everyone.”

“I would like to say good day to her.”

“I think I hear her banging around now. Either that or we are being visited by an earthquake. I’ll call her.”

When she left the room, Henry said, “I must get busy if I am to be finished with this work for Fordwich. But before I go—Neville was disappointed with my refusal, was he?”

“Very much so. We all were, but you are comfortably ensconced in another nest now, and it wouldn’t do for me to be poaching. Maddie has already rung a peel over me on that score.”

“I am only helping my cousin Fordwich, with a little of his correspondence. It’s as much personal estate business as anything else, to leave him free for politics. He’s so busy, it is the least I can do.”

“I think it a great waste of your time and talents to be nothing more than a scribbler, but then I’m sure you know what you are about,” Eskott said, biting back a sharper rejoinder. Estate business was not conducted from Westminster.

“My cousins have been so kind to me, you know, that I could hardly refuse to give Fordwich a hand when he asked.”

“Yes, I quite understand your position.”

Lady Margaret entered smiling. Henry left, and as Madeline did not return to the saloon, Eskott assumed she had joined her cousin in her father’s study.

“I haven’t seen you in two years, Eskott. I hope you’re keeping well? Have you time to join me for a cup of tea? Nasty cold weather we are having.”

“That would be nice. I had not heard you were in town, or I would have been here sooner to pay my respects.”

“I hadn’t intended coming, but...” She stopped, with a worried glance to the doorway.

“Is it Aldred that has you worried?”

“Aldred and that foolish niece of mine. She is infatuated with him, Eskott. There is no other word for it.”

“Surely Fordwich does not go along with it?”

“He refuses to see what is going on beneath his nose. I
don’t
understand it, unless it is Aldred’s telling him ten times a day he should be the next prime minister that accounts for it. That is sweet music to my brother’s ears, you must know. He realizes it will never happen, but I think it has always been a secret ambition. Well, it is only natural; every man wants to rise to the top.”

“Some are not too exacting as to the devices they employ,” he said, with a meaningful look that had nothing to do with Fordwich, nor was Lady Margaret so slow as to think it had.

“He is a self-seeking, unscrupulous man, Eskott. But family, cousins to us, that is how he got his foot in the door in the first place. Now he has got his entire body in with this business of acting as secretary to my brother.”

“Maddie suspects nothing?”

“When you are in the state that poor girl is in, you see what you want to see. I could almost pity her, if I weren’t so disgusted.”

“What do you figure is his aim, to use the family to get a good position, or to marry her fortune?”

“Both. If it were only a job he was after, I wouldn’t mind. Of course she is attractive; I don’t say he don’t
like
her, but certainly he is making use of her, using her connections to climb the ladder. If he found someone he liked better, or someone richer, I expect he would drop her without so much as a second thought.”

“There is a rumor he played a similar stunt on a young lady back home. I think I must investigate that matter more thoroughly. Maddie puts an innocent coloring on the incident, but perhaps if he actually jilted a girl...”

“She wouldn’t believe a word of it if he did. You would have to put the girl under her nose to convince Maddie, and then she’d be more apt to believe Henry than the woman.”

“Perhaps I have been working on the wrong angle. I have been trying to discover his character by means of his politics. Just what exactly is it he does for your brother? What sort of work?”

“Work connected with Fordwich’s position on the Privy Council. He summarizes reports my brother hasn’t time to read, writes letters for him, that sort of thing.”

“Nothing of a more personal nature? Estate business?”

“No, no, the bailiff at the park attends to all that. He may scribble off an occasional note about something my brother wishes done, but it is mainly government work. In fact, he is paid by the government.”

“I see. I have just determined the fellow is a liar at least. He indicated quite the opposite to me—estate work, with a little politics thrown in.”

“I’ll tell you who knows more about his private life than anyone is young Barker—the fellow they call Taffy Barker. He was visiting Aldred just before he came to London. He don’t see much of Barker any longer, now that he is working.”

“Taffy won’t miss Sidmouth’s ball. I’ll make a point of having a chat with him.”

“You’re going to a good deal of trouble, Eskott. Is there any special reason... ?”