Lord Sidley's Last Season (14 page)

Given Katie’s accompanying arch look, Marian
feared she might choke. Indeed, she heard Edith’s
sharply indrawn breath.

But Lord Sidley looked unfazed. “We might well believe that prophecy, Lady Katherine,” he said blandly.
“Your suitor is to be congratulated”

While Katie looked happily undaunted, he turned to
Becca Harvey. “Is Lady Katherine unique, Miss Harvey,
or did our canny Cassandra promise you the same?”

Becca shook her chestnut head. “My fortune was
quite different, Lord Sidley. She told me she saw `fast
horses and a long journey.”’

“Certainly you must welcome the prospect of fast
horses,” Sidley said. “Given your equestrian talents.”

“Oh, always, my lord”

“No one rides as well as Miss Harvey,” Edgar enthused, drawing a black look from Lord Benjamin.

“But the rest makes little sense, my lord,” her father
pointed out, “as we’re only a day from town, as are all
the estates I’m reviewing.”

“Perhaps what seems `long’ to such an elderly woman
is only a day’s journey for your fast horses, Mr. Harvey,”
Sidley said.

“There is that, my lord! If you are determined to make
sense of what isn’t.”

Sidley smiled. “My skepticism prompts this review,
sir,” he said, “yet you find me too gullible?”

“Ah, no, my lord, that was not my meaning.”

“Did you have your palm read, Mr. Harvey?”

“I did. All the woman said was `timely assistance.’
Timely assistance! If anyone can make heads or tails
of that”

Mrs. Harvey chirped in, “She told me I shall have a
magnificent new hat, my lord!”

“That I must believe, ma’am,” Sidley said with a nod
to her, “as the bonnet and its bearer must always suit.”

Mrs. Harvey actually blushed with pleasure.

“You will appreciate my reading, Sidley,” Lord
Benjamin volunteered. “She told me I would make a
fortunate investment.”

“A `fortunate investment,’ Benny, might mean gaining hundreds of pounds or merely one.”

“All the more reason to wager hundreds!”

“But remark, my friend. She referred only to an investment, not all. She did not indicate which. I fear your
probabilities have not altered in the slightest.”

“Possibly not! But it certainly makes me feel lucky!”

Sidley shook his head and looked to Edgar. “Lord
Formsby, did you submit?”

“I did, Sidley. I was told I shall come into a fine property. But since I already have a fine property, I don’t very
well know what that might mean.”

“I should think marriage,” Sir Philip remarked. “‘Tis the accepted way, for one of your age. No guessing there,
I imagine!”

“I hadn’t really thought,” Edgar said. But his gaze
traveled to Becca Harvey, causing Marian to trade
looks with Edith across the table.

“You are to be congratulated,” Lord Sidley told Edgar,
“but this is not enough to qualify as soothsaying. At your
age, as Sir Philip mentioned, a young man might be presumed to be contemplating matrimony.”

“Even men a bit older might contemplate it,” Lady
Adeline observed equably.

“Indeed, Aunt. Sir Philip, was such a proposition put
to you?”

Sir Philip laughed. “An end to my widowed status was
not discussed, my lord. Quite the contrary. I was told that
my grandchildren would adore me.”

“Papa, she didn’t!” his daughter protested.

“She did, m’dear,” he assured Delia with a wink.

“Might we make an assumption regarding your own
future then, Miss TinckneyDwight?” Sidley paired the
question with such a warm smile that Marian feared a
proposal was imminent.

“I was promised a contented household, my lord.
Children spoiled by my father might not further such
contentment.”

The comment drew laughter from the entire table.

Really, Marian thought in some despair, Delia is
quite perfect for him. Perhaps they will announce before the visit ends. And beneath the table her hands tightened into fists.

“Clara Poole,” Sidley tasked her, “what did our old
friend have to tell you?”

“I fear she was most general, most vague, Lee. She
told me I shall be loved.”

“That is not the future, Clara. That is the present”

She acknowledged the comment with a shy smile.

“Our `old friend,’ as you term her, Sidley,” Dicky
said, “is clearly tired of me. She tells me the same every
year-that I shall marry a `good’ woman and become
fat. I cannot determine if I am to marry a cook or be so
pestered for my sins, I turn to sweets for solace!”

In the midst of the subsequent laughter, Sidley made
sport of sighing loudly. “I perceive the trend. Our
palmist always speaks the same. She is predictable as
the sunrise, possibly because she is two hundred years
old. Certainly her tattered cloak looks as though a cavalier gifted it to her.”

“Sidley!” his aunt protested. “The woman was a girl
when I was.”

“Was she, Auntie? My deepest apologies. But we
must still conclude that the young woman foretells love,
wealth, and happiness with reliable consistency. No one
has been delivered of a sad or even an uncertain fate”

“Oh, but Marian was,” Katie promptly supplied. “She
was told she will be `crossed in love.”’

As Marian felt all eyes on her, she looked to Katie in
some exasperation.

But once again Sidley drew her attention. “Is that
so?” he asked.

She thought his hooded gaze calculating.

“I can only believe that would be the case, Miss Ware,
if you were to give your heart to the undeserving.”

No, Marian denied silently, looking at him. Not undeserving. But perhaps, in this instance, unfeeling.

“Lieutenant Reeves is most deserving, my lord,”
Edith said.

“Then perhaps we’ve discovered a fault in our forecaster’s record. Did she say nothing else, Miss Ware?”

Marian knew he would have all from her-at any cost.

“Her precise words, my lord,” she relayed distinctly,
“were: `This lady will be crossed in love but will find
much favor.”’

“Ah! Then she sugared her reading with something
positive. Perhaps you will find that your love was rather
a fragile thing, to be `crossed’ at all.”

“Sidley!” his aunt objected once more. “Miss Ware’s
affections could only ever be sincere.”

“My apologies, Miss Ware.” He condescended to
nod to Marian. “You mustn’t take my words amiss. Naturally, if one is to be `crossed in love,’ ‘tis the other
party’s sincerity that should be questioned.”

“Sidley!” Lady Adeline repeated.

This time the rest of the table was silent for some
rather painful seconds, a silence broken by Lord
Vaughn. He grinned at Marian, who sat across from
him. “I believe I must rob you of the award for the worst fortune, Miss Ware. I was informed I would find
`peace in purpose’-as enigmatic a prospect as Sidley
might hope for. I deduce that unless I am meant to purchase colors once more, I must take other `orders’ and
enter the church.”

“Nonsense!” Lord Benjamin cried over the light,
nervous laughter of some at the table. “I suspect instead
you are intended to tell old `Gruff’un’ Knox-”

“Benny,” Sidley interrupted sharply, “I recall you
promised to partner Miss Harvey at cards tonight, did
you not? As it is already late, I suggest we remove ourselves to that pleasure. I sense that Miss Harvey grows
impatient.”

“Not at all, Lord Sidley,” Becca said, though she rose
from her seat at almost the same instant as Lady Adeline rose from hers. “And you have not told us why you
never seek your own fortune.”

“Because I prefer not to know any of it, Miss Harvey.
Blindness to one’s fate lends a man a decided advantage. Had I known what was to befall me the past dozen
years, I might not have weathered them half as well”

At this his friends teased him, but Marian was led to
reflect. Her cousin Edith, perhaps judging incorrectly
that Marian was troubled by her projected fate, squeezed
her arm solicitously as they removed to the drawing
room. But it was Lord Sidley’s future that troubled Marian, not her own.

He had hired a quartet of musicians, which now serenaded them at cards. The extravagance of bringing such a group from town amazed Marian; no doubt they were
originally intended to play for Aldersham’s guests at
dancing, as Sidley had hinted the previous evening.

Marian glanced over at his table, where he partnered
Delia against the Harveys. He was at ease and smiling;
the lantern light made his jet hair shine. He looked as
though he hadn’t a care in the world. Yet someone, and
Marian suspected Lord Sidley himself, had placed
Marian at cards with Lord Benjamin, Edgar, and Becca
Harvey. The jealously competitive undercurrents among
such a threesome ensured that Marian’s usual dislike
for card games was even more pronounced. She had to
wonder why she alone drew such dedicated, discomfiting attention from their congenial host.

When Rebecca Harvey, claiming a headache, begged
off extending the evening, Marian happily followed the
girl’s lead in seeking dismissal. She had been awake
early, and the afternoon had been a long one. And she
knew she must once again paint Sidley in the morninga prospect that she could not entirely welcome.

Had Sidley not proposed the project in portraiture
himself, he’d have likened it to some form of torture.
Certainly its novelty had faded by the close of the previous day’s session. This morning’s sitting would necessarily be shorter, since he’d promised to take much of the
party on a tour of the park, with an extended stop for a
picnic. He accepted the sitting’s curtailment with considerable relief, knowing that he could not be trusted with Miss Ware. His comments the previous evening had been
proof enough of that. His own unreasoned behavior had
appalled him.

His aunt had not yet spoken to him, but her looks had
served. He anticipated her disapproving presence in the
library this morning.

Grimly, he donned the blue coat that Marian Ware
had preferred. He knew his vanity, his despicable vanity,
had led him to seek what he should not have sought
from the girl, to test a commitment that had clearly been
tested enough during the two-year absence of her fiance.

Vaughn, charging that Sidley was “not acting as he
ought,” no longer spoke to him, and Dicky Poole had sent
him too many questioning looks. Soon his genteel neighbors, the Pooles, would comprehend just how inanely
their old friend Sidley was behaving.

Yet she was here, in his home, and he could picture
no other woman in it as long as she remained.

“Deuce take it,” he muttered as his valet straightened
the coat and brushed a small sprinkling of powder from
one sleeve. Sidley was wearing less powder; he was determined to “recover” in rapid time. But he could not
simply stroll into breakfast one morning with a brilliant
complexion. The transition had to be accomplished with
a modicum of finesse. By the time he returned to town,
within the next week or ten days, all would know that
Lord Sidley had gained a reprieve.

He picked up the small wooden toy he had purchased
the previous afternoon. The trinket had caught his eye as he made his way to the hiring halls; he’d convinced himself Miss Ware deserved it as a token of appreciation. He
suspected he would have difficulty enough in settling a
reasonable payment on the girl. She was likely to balk at
even the most trivial of sums. Miss Ware needed a
deputy; she needed someone more responsible than
Formsby to forward her affairs. He doubted a newly decommissioned naval lieutenant, one who wished to retire
to the country, would answer.

Impatiently he made his way to the library, to discover
she was not yet down. He ordered tea instead of chocolate. Yesterday’s offering had been intended to seduce,
but it had seemed to work its spell solely upon himself.
This morning he wished only to get on with the business.

“Oh!”

He heard her behind him. Turning from consideration of the front garden, he confronted her startled expression.

“I-I believed I was early and would precede you,
my lord.”

“We are all scheduled for a picnic today, Miss Ware”
He knew he sounded chilly, decidedly unlike a host happily contemplating a picnic. All the more chilly, perhaps,
because he thought she looked rather adorable, somehow
particularly so, enveloped as she was in her serviceable
painting smock.

“‘Tis an energetic enterprise, my lord. You are feeling well enough … ?”

“I know my own strength, Miss Ware.”

“Certainly.” She moved quickly toward her easel. “We
shall start at once. If you would kindly-” She broke off
as she noticed the toy. “The cat.” She took it up and, as
though she could not help herself, pressed the button for
its operation. Then she turned to him. “Miss Poole must
have told you?”

“Clara? Told me what, Miss Ware?”

“Of my interest in the toy. That I admired it.”

“Did you admire it? I had no notion. When I saw it, I
thought only that you might admire it. Clara did not
betray your confidences”

“I see” She placed it carefully upon a side table, as
though she never intended to take it up again.

“It is a gift, Miss Ware,” he said. “In partial payment
for this portrait.” She was looking as serious as he felt;
the atmosphere needed lightening. He forced a smile. “I
am gratified to have chosen something you liked.”

“Indeed yes. I-thank you, my lord.”

He took a seat as the tea arrived. He earnestly set about
posing once more.

“Did you-did you review the start of the painting,
my lord?”

“No, Miss Ware” He had quite pointedly not done so.
He was already reasonably tired of himself. “I needn’t
see it at all until it satisfies you.”

She frowned at that. “I merely wished you to know that
I have no preference for concealment while it progresses,
as some artists do. You must feel free to comment.”

“I trust you, Miss Ware” He turned his gaze briefly
to the garden. “The light is not as good this morning.”