Lady Roma's Romance (2 page)

“Bret, here, is quite the playgoer,” she said brightly. “Aren’t you, Bret?”

“I am fond of a play,” he admitted, wondering why this was suddenly the chief facet of his character.

“Fancy, he’s been trying to persuade me to go to the Theater Royal to see this new production. As lief ask me to catch my death in a box, stuffy and cold by turns. And all those people crowded in together. I’m sure the ague that I had two winters ago was from just such a cause.”

Lady Roma’s charming brows lifted. “You needn’t suffer so. A shawl and a fan both would answer, and I know how you were longing to see this show two years ago.
The Broken Sword,
isn’t it?”

“With all new stage sets and costumes, so they say,” Lady Brownlow said on a sigh, as though describing some delightful yet unobtainable dream. “I should so like to see it.”

“Then do so, dear Mother Brownlow. Why tease yourself? I’m certain Mr. Donovan will take exquisite care of you.”

“I have already vowed to do so,” Bret said. No one could think of him as being slow of apprehension. It was the work of a moment to divine that his darling aunt’s strange facial expressions and jerks of plump shoulders did not mean that she was suffering from a fit but was, in fact, attempting to give him a hint. “Would you consider joining us, Lady Roma? Between we two, we should be able to render Lady Brownlow all the assistance she could require.”

As she gave her smiling acceptance not to him but to Lady Brownlow, Bret puzzled over her. Despite his bragging to amuse his aunt, he did not believe himself to be a particularly vain man. He’d had his share of conquests, both in England and abroad. Yet he’d never before met a woman who seemed so completely ... unaware.

Not merely unaware of him as a male but of herself as a female. The intense femininity that informed every gesture of his aunt’s was completely absent in Lady Roma. On the other hand, she was neither boyish nor mannish. She certainly didn’t flirt, not even unintentionally. If she wanted to smile at him, she smiled. If she didn’t happen to think of him, she wouldn’t bother. She did not work one single art upon him, and he knew them all. She didn’t even ignore him flirtatiously, looking to see how he was taking it.

It was enough to drive a man of normal instincts quite mad. Lady Roma gave him nothing to play off, yet he couldn’t bring himself either to treat her like a male or to be anywhere near as supremely unconscious of physical reality as she. Her beauty had struck him like a lightning bolt direct from Zeus. Even stronger was his curiosity about her, How could any woman neglect to employ her chief weapon? Most he knew used their wiles even on the most ineligible men, merely to keep their hand in. No one could be more ineligible than himself, yet that hadn’t stopped women from flirting with him, even in the presence of their husbands and fathers.

She stayed exactly the right amount of time, considering the truncated closeness of their relationship. They had so nearly been dose family. As Lady Roma prepared to leave, Lady Brownlow began again those remarkable contortions until Bret’s offer to attend her ladyship home brought a smile to his aunt’s full face. “Take Bret’s arm home, my dear. All those hills. I feel faint just considering them.”

“Are you in condition, Mr. Donovan?” These teasing words should have been accompanied by downcast eyes or a laugh. Instead, she seemed genuinely interested.

“I fancy I can conquer the worst of Bath.” He thought of his knee and the twinges it gave him when jauntering about the rolling cobbled streets. Warily, he amended, “It’s not Camden Place, is it?”

She laughed, a low liquid run of notes like a nightingale trying out a new tune. “Nothing so strenuous. Merely the Crescent, though that can be too steep for some.”

“You’d think none lived in Bath but mountain goats,” Lady Brownlow grumbled. “I’ve been here three weeks and haven’t had the strength to climb up to see Divvy Shoebottle, my bosom-beau from when I was girl, for all she only lives five streets away. But it’s all uphill and I just can’t face it.”

“I shall send the carriage for you,” Lady Roma said, bending to kiss once again the soft sueded cheek.

“The carriage? For five streets?”

“Why not? It will do the horses good to have a little exercise instead of eating their heads off. Why Papa insists on bringing his own cattle to Bath I will never comprehend. He doesn’t use them. They would be better off at Yarborough, but you can’t convince him of any such thing.”

She stood there for several minutes, gloves in hand, listening to Lady Brownlow’s strictures on Lord Yarborough without any apparent diminution in her patience, her good humor, or her independence of mind. “Alas, I remain fond of him for all that you say is true. He doesn’t pay any attention to meals, he is stubborn, and can hardly tell if I am in the room or not. But I cannot change him now.”

“You should have done so when you had the opportunity. It’s too late now.”

“So true but I had not yet been born when he was still malleable. When shall I call again, dear Mother Brownlow?”

“You’re too busy to sit with an old woman. Don’t give me a thought. But the door will be open to you any time you care to call. It will do us both a great deal of good to see your pretty face around these dull lodgings, won’t it, Bret?”

“How can my lady doubt it?” he said neatly, with a bow, hand on his heart.

As Lady Roma went out of the drawing room, Lady Brownlow caught the skirt of Bret’s coat. “Don’t hurry back,” she whispered. “I’m an interfering old lady but believe I have your best interests at heart. For both of you.” She released him.

As Bret strode to the door, he felt torn between amusement and shock. His aunt couldn’t possibly mean her words to be interpreted in the first manner that occurred to him. She couldn’t possibly mean for him to make love to her late son’s affianced bride?

Glancing back over his shoulder with a half-smile, he watched as she gave him an encouraging gesture. If it had not been for the extreme good humor and ignorance with which it had been given, it would have been exceedingly vulgar. Bret was still laughing when he came out into the foyer.

Lady Roma glanced at him, a light in her eyes ready to kindle into laughter as soon as he explained the joke. But that, of course, was impossible. He wasn’t sure that he understood it himself.

The parlor maid brought his overcoat. “The sun is shining, Landon, for the first time since I have come to Bath. I shall dispense with the coat.” Landon looked doubtful.

Lady Roma was speaking to a frigidly respectable and frightfully straight-backed maid. “Mr. Donovan will see me home. Please stop in to Mademoiselle Perrifleur’s and see if those things are ready.”

“I shan’t accept any of her excuses, my lady,” the maid said, while casting her eyes over Mr. Donovan in such a way that he felt his description would be given to Bow Street if ‘my lady’ so much as stubbed her toe on the journey home. “Your umbrella, my lady.”

“If Mr. Donovan can dispense with his greatcoat, Pigeon, I can do without my umbrella.”

“But...” The maid tightened her lips over her protest, obviously reluctant to show any human feeling before an inferior parlor maid and a mere man.

Clapping his tall hat on his head as he and Lady Roma emerged on the top of the steps, Bret offered his arm to the lady. “Do our duties rule out our stopping somewhere for refreshment?”

“After that sumptuous tea?” Lady Roma said quizzingly.

“The cook in that house never can bring the water to a true boil. And two digestive biscuits apiece is hardly a Lucullan orgy,” he said, enjoying the light touch of her hand in the bend of his arm.

“Please, Mr. Donovan, no Roman references. I receive enough of that at home.”

“Yes, you said something about Rome before. Your father is fond of Roman antiquities?”

“Passionately fond, sir. Thus my unfortunate name.”

“Roma?” he said, tasting it in his mouth.

“Alas, I cannot conceive of what my mother was thinking. I can only assume that she was so besotted by Father that she had no will in the matter.”

“I think it is charming.”

“You would hardly tell me otherwise, being not entirely dead to good manners.” She smiled into his eyes, still without flirtation, merely as she might smile at anyone anywhere. “But I assure you if it weren’t that all my other names are equally loathsome, I would even now be using one of them.”

“What are they?”

“Would you have me reveal all my secrets on first acquaintance? How will I intrigue you if you know all my mysteries?”

“Do you wish to intrigue me?” If so, she was going about it the right way, though it was a method no woman had ever used with him before. If she’d been shy or cold, he would have exerted himself to bring her out for Lady Brownlow’s sake and her sake alone. If she’d been a commonplace flirt, he would have enjoyed her arts and thought nothing more of her. But absolute friendliness combined with the demeanor of a lady was something new in his experience. He liked it and her but couldn’t help wondering how deep this quality went. Was it veneer only, an art, or did it issue from her soul?

“Surely every woman wishes to make a conquest of every man she meets.”

“Is that your ambition?”

A slight frown had appeared between her two arching brows. Lady Roma looked down the street but not as if she were seeing the horse and cart that stood there. “I have been told that it should be my ambition. I have been told that I am ‘on the shelf—detestable phrase— and should stir myself or be left to look no-how as younger girls marry.”

“What ninnyhammer told you such a thing?”

That brought her back to the here and now. The pleasure returned to her voice. “How shockingly rude of me, Mr. Donovan. Please forgive my abstraction.”

“What sin should I forgive, Lady Roma? You but did me the honor of speaking to me as a friend.”

“Which we are not, sir. Merely new acquaintances.” Her smile soothed the sting. “Has anyone ever told you that you are outrageously easy to talk to, sir?”

“I have heard it before. My brother officers often brought their troubles to me.” In answer to her bright, questioning look, he added, “Not for a lady’s ears.”

“Did you always find a way out?”

Bret laughed. “No. Sometimes a way through and sometimes a way under.”

“You must be very clever.”

“Not always. For instance, I don’t know how to encourage a lady to confide her second name to me.”

“Still worrying that bone?” she asked. She walked well, neither dragging behind nor hurrying on, but matching their steps to a nicety. He acknowledged an unworthy wish that he was taller than she. If they were both barefoot, he might overtake her by an inch, but not more. He toyed with the thought of asking for a slightly higher heel on that new pair of boots but dismissed the thought as small-minded.

“You have piqued my curiosity.” In more ways than one, he added mentally.

“And you will not rest ‘til it is satisfied? Are you part cat, sir?”

He shook off the memories that name conjured up. “I have been called so. But, I must be fair so I propose a trade. One of your names for one of my secrets.”

“Have you any secrets of interest?” she asked, one brow lifting in a charming arch.

“Ask me whatever your fancy demands.” He touched the brim of his hat to an old card-playing acquaintance on the other side of the street. They’d emerged into a much busier thoroughfare, shops on both sides and the clatter and growl of traffic passing over the stone-paved streets making it harder to hear each other. Bret was suddenly glad that she wasn’t some tiny creature whom he’d have to bend down to hear.

“Who is that beautiful girl?” Lady Roma asked, glancing over at the guinea golden-haired girl mincing down the far side of the street with a hard-faced chaperon at her shoulder. Many young and not-so-young men were turning back to look at her. The divine girl dimpled and nodded as Bret glanced at her, but the chaperon’s distressing purple pelisse instantly screened the maiden from his view.

“Is that your question?”

Her smile turned roguish. “Is she one of your secrets?”

“Lady Roma,” Bret said, letting his voice deepen as if by shock. “Miss Fiddyment is a graduate of a most select Young Ladies’ Academy brought to Bath by the express wish of her guardian, who finds himself in rather low ebb at the moment.”

“The delights of London proving, he fears, too much for his ward’s health? And his purse?”

“Naturally, he wishes to keep her under his eye.”

“And away from any young men who might wish to show her the pleasures of the town.”

Though her cheeks had grown slightly pinker than walking could explain, Lady Roma met his eyes without a blink. “I am considerably more than seven, Mr. Donovan. My . . . my father had a little dove in his keeping for some years.”

“You knew of it?” Now Bret was shocked. In his world, men might indulge in unlawful affection, but they did not share the details with their daughters.

Then he recalled that she and her father had only each other for companionship. “I suppose you and Lord Yarborough are the best of good friends.”

“No, I should not presume to say so,” she said slowly. “I am
fond
of him, very fond, of course, but I should not say we are friends. He is my father. I have the greatest respect for his attainments. He is a very wise, very knowledgeable gentleman. His heart is kindness itself.”

“I see,” Bret said, somewhat taken aback by this cool recitation of her parent’s virtues. Though he could not have listed a similar catalog for his own late father, he smiled whenever he thought of the old rascal and cherished the bits of advice, mostly scandalously immoral, he’d let fall during his lifetime.

“I only knew about Father’s arrangement with Miss Fitzgerald when she wrote me a most concerned note. Naturally, I called upon her.”

“You called upon your father’s ...” Bret was still shocked, but a tincture of amusement had begun to mix in. Was she phlegmatic, unimaginative, or simply the bearer of such amazing self-possession that she could not see the oddity of such behavior?

“What else could I do? The poor girl was quite beside herself with anxiety, not to mention in dire financial straits. Having been often in the same case, I could sincerely sympathize.”