Once Upon A Dream (15 page)

Abruptly, three weeks trudging about the hills of the Lake District loomed not as a penance owed a dear friend, but as a reprieve, even if it meant
uprooting the boys.

“My plans are not yet entirely made,” Sedgemere said. “Though Hardcastle and I will both be leaving Town shortly.”

Miss Sharon was desolated to hear this, though everybody left the pestilential heat of a London summer if they could. She cooed and twittered and clung
from one end of the Serpentine to the other, until Sedgemere was tempted to push her into the water simply to silence her.

“We bid you
adieu
,” Hardcastle said, tipping his hat once more, fifty interminable, cooing, clutching yards later. “And we bid
you farewell, for as Sedgemere says, the time has come for ruralizing. I’m sure we’ll see both of you when we return to London.”

Hardcastle was up to something, Sedgemere knew not what. Hardcastle was a civil fellow, though not even the Cheshire twins would accuse him of charm.
Sedgemere liked that about him, liked that one man could be relied upon to be honest at all times, about all matters. Unfortunately, such guilelessness
would make Hardcastle a lamb to slaughter among the house-party set.

Amid much simpering and parasol twirling, the Cheshire ladies minced back to Park Lane, there to lurk like trolls under a bridge until the next titled
bachelor came along to enjoy the fresh air.

“Turn around now,” Sedgemere said, taking Hardcastle by the arm and walking him back the way they’d come. “Before they start
fluttering handkerchiefs as if the Navy were departing for Egypt. I suppose you leave me no choice but to accompany you on this infernal frolic to the
Lakes.”

“Because you are turning into a bore and a disgrace and must hide up north?” Hardcastle inquired pleasantly.

“Because there’s safety in numbers, you dolt. Because if Miss Cheshire had sprung that question on you, about whether you intended to call, you
would have answered her, and spent half of Tuesday in her mama’s parlor, dodging debutante décolletages and tea trays.”

Marriage imbued a man with instincts, or perhaps fatherhood did. Hardcastle was merely an uncle, but that privileged status meant he had his heir without
having stuck the ducal foot in parson’s mousetrap.

“I say, that is a handsome woman,” Hardcastle muttered. Hardcastle did not notice women, but an octogenarian Puritan would have taken a closer
look at the vision approaching on the path.

“Miss Anne Faraday,” Sedgemere said, a comely specimen indeed. Tall, unfashionably curvaceous, unfashionably dark-haired, she was also one of
few women whose company did not send Sedgemere into a foul humor. In fact, her approach occasioned something like relief.

“You’re not dodging off into the rhododendrons,” Hardcastle said, “and yet you seem to know her.”

Would Miss Faraday acknowledge Sedgemere? She was well beyond her come out, and no respecter of dukes, single or otherwise.

“I don’t know her well, but I like her very much,” Sedgemere said. “She hates me, you see. Has no marital aspirations in my
direction whatsoever. For that alone, she enjoys my most sincere esteem.”

Effie was chattering about the great burden of having to pack up Anne’s dresses in this heat, and about the dust of the road, and all the ghastly
impositions on a lady’s maid resulting from travel to the countryside at the end of the Season.

Anne half-listened, but mostly she was absorbed with the effort of
not
noticing. She did not notice the Cheshire twins, for example, all but
cutting her in public. They literally could not afford to cut her. Neither could the Henderson heir, who merely touched his hat brim to her as if he
couldn’t recall that he’d seen her in Papa’s formal parlor not three days ago. Mr. Willow Dorning, an earl’s spare who was rumored
to enjoy the company of dogs more than people, offered her a genuine, if shy, smile.

If Anne wanted freedom from Papa’s sad eyes and long-suffering sighs, the price she paid was not noticing that, even in the genteel confines of Hyde
Park, most of polite society was not very polite at all—to her.

“It’s that dook,” Effie muttered, “the ice dook, they call him.”

“He’s not icy, Effie. Sedgemere is simply full of his own consequence.”

And why shouldn’t he be? He was handsome in a rigid, frigid way, with white-gold hair that no breeze would dare ruffle. His features were an
assemblage of patrician attributes—a nose well suited to being looked down, a mouth more full than expected, but no matter, for Anne had never seen
that mouth smile. Sedgemere’s eyes were a disturbingly pale blue, as if some Viking ancestor looked out of them, one having a grand sulk to be
stranded so far from his frozen landscapes and turbulent seas.

“Your papa could buy and sell the consequence of any three dooks, miss, and well they know it.”

“The problem in a nutshell,” Anne murmured as Sedgemere’s gaze lit on her.

He was in company with the Duke of Hardcastle, whom Anne had heard described as semi-eligible. Hardcastle had an heir, twelve estates, and a dragon for a
grandmother. He was notably reserved, though Anne liked what she knew of him. He wasn’t prone to staring at bosoms, for example.

Always a fine quality in a man.

Sedgemere was even wealthier than Hardcastle, had neither mama nor extant duchess, but was father to three boys. To Anne’s dismay, His Grace of
Sedgemere did not merely touch a gloved finger to his hat brim, he instead doffed his hat and bowed.

“Miss Faraday, hello.”

She was so surprised, her curtseys lacked the proper deferential depth. “Your Graces, good day.”

Then came the moment Anne dreaded most, when instead of not-noticing her, a scion of polite society
did
notice her, simply for the pleasure of
brushing her aside. Sedgemere had yet to indulge in that particular sport with her, but he too, had visited in Papa’s parlor more than once.

“Shall you walk with us for a moment?” Sedgemere asked. “I believe you know Hardcastle, or I’d perform the introductions.”

A large ducal elbow aimed itself in Anne’s direction. Such an elbow never came her way unless the duke in question owed Papa at least ten thousand
pounds.

“Sedgemere’s on his best behavior,” Hardcastle said, taking Anne’s other arm, “because if you tolerate his escort, then
he’ll not find other ladies plaguing him. The debutantes fancy Sedgemere violently this time of year.”

The social Season was wrapping up, and too many families with daughters had endured the expense of a London Season without a marriage proposal to show for
their efforts. Papa made fortunes off the social aspirations of the
beau monde
, while Anne—with no effort whatsoever—made enemies.

“The young ladies fancy unmarried dukes any time of year,” Anne replied. Nonetheless, when Sedgemere tucked her hand onto his arm, she allowed
it. This time tomorrow, she’d be well away from London, and the awful accusations resulting from a chance meeting in the park would never reach her
ears.

The gossips would say that the presuming, unfortunate Anne Faraday was after a duke. No, that she was after two dukes.

Or perhaps, wicked creature that she was, she would pursue a royal duke next, for her father could afford even a royal husband for her.

“Will you spend the summer in Town, ma’am?” Hardcastle asked.

“Likely not, Your Grace. Papa’s business means he will remain here, but he prefers that I spend some time in the shires, if possible.”

“You always mention your father’s business as early in a conversation as possible,” Sedgemere said.

Anne could not decipher Sedgemere. His expression was as unreadable as a winter sky. If he’d been insulting her, the angle of his attack was subtle.

“I merely answered His Grace of Hardcastle’s question. What of Your Graces? Will you soon leave for the country?”

Miss Helen Trimble and Lady Evette Hartley strolled past, and the consternation on their faces was almost worth the beating Anne’s reputation would
take once they were out of earshot. The gentlemen tipped their hats, the ladies dipped quick curtseys. Hardcastle was inveigled into accompanying the
ladies to the gates of the park, and then—

Like a proud debutante poised in her newest finery at the top of the ballroom stairs, Sedgemere had come to a full stop. 

“Your Grace?” Anne prompted, tugging on Sedgemere’s arm.

 “They did not acknowledge you. Those
women
did not so much as greet you. You might have been one of Mr. Dorning’s mongrel
dogs.”

Well, no, because Mr. Dorning’s canines were famously well-mannered, and thus endured much cooing and fawning from the ladies. Abruptly, Anne wished
she could scurry off across the grass, and bedamned to manners, dukes, and young women who were terrified of growing old without a
husband.   

“The ladies often don’t acknowledge me, Your Grace. I wish you would not remark it. The agreement we have is that they don’t notice me,
and I don’t notice their rudeness. You will please neglect to mention this to my father.”

As calculating as Papa was in business, he was a tender-hearted innocent when it came to ballroom warfare. In Papa’s mind, his little girl—all
nearly six feet of her—was simply too intelligent, pretty, sophisticated, and lovely for the friendship of the simpering twits and lisping viscounts.

“An agreement not to notice you?” Sedgemere snapped. “Who made such an agreement? Not that pair of dowdy poseurs. They couldn’t
agree on how to tie their bonnet ribbons.”

The park was at its best as summer advanced, while all the rest of London became malodorous and stifling. The fashionable hour was about to begin, and thus
the duke’s behavior would soon attract notice.

“Your Grace will please refrain from making a scene,” Anne said through gritted teeth. “I am the daughter of a man who holds the vowels
of half the papas, uncles, and brothers of polite society. The ladies resent that, even if they aren’t privy to the specifics.”

Anne wasn’t privy to the specifics either, thank heavens.

Sedgemere condescended to resume sauntering, leading Anne away from the Park Lane gates, deeper into the park’s quiet greenery. She at first thought
he was simply obliging her request, but a muscle leapt along his jaw.

“I’m sorry,” Anne said. “If you owe Papa money, I assure you I’m not aware of it. He’s most discreet, and I would never
pry, and it’s of no moment to me whether—”

“Hush,” Sedgemere growled. “I’m trying to behave. One mustn’t use foul language before a lady. Those women were
ridiculous.”

“They were polite to you,” Anne said.

“Everybody is polite to a duke. It’s nauseating.”

“Everybody is rude to a banker’s daughter. That’s not exactly pleasant either, Your Grace.”

The rudeness wasn’t the worst of it, though. Worse than the cold stares, sneering smiles, and snide innuendos were the men. Certain titled bachelors
saw Anne as a source of cash, which her father should be eager to turn over to them in exchange for allowing her to bear their titled heirs.

Which indelicate undertaking might kill her, of course.

Such men appraised her figure and her face as if she were a mare at Tatt’s, a little long in the tooth, her bloodlines nondescript, though she was
handsome enough for an afternoon ride.

“Everybody is rude to you?” Sedgemere asked.

Sedgemere carried disdain around with him like an expensive cape draped over his arm, visible at twenty paces, unlikely to be mislaid. His curiosity, as if
Anne’s situation were a social experiment, and she responsible for reporting its results, disappointed her.

She hadn’t thought she could be any more disappointed, not in a titled gentleman anyway.

“Must you make sport of my circumstances, Your Grace? Perhaps you’d care to take yourself off now. My maid will see me home.”

He came to a leisurely halt and tucked his gloved hand over Anne’s knuckles, so she could not free herself of him without drawing notice.

“You are sending me away,” he said. “A duke of the realm, fifty-third in line for the throne, and you’re sending me packing like a
presuming, jug-eared footman who neglected to chew adequate quantities of parsley after overimbibing. Hardcastle will not believe this.”

Incredulity was apparently in the air, for Anne could not believe what she beheld either. The Duke of Sedgemere, he of the icy eyes and frosty
condescension, was regarding her with something approaching curiosity. Interest, at least, and not the sort of interest that involved her bosom.

“Perhaps you’d better toddle on, then,” Anne said. “I’m sure there’s a debutante—or twelve—who will expire
of despair if she can’t flaunt her wares at you before sundown.”

“I’m dismissed out of hand, and now I’m to toddle. Dukes do not toddle, madam. Perhaps the heat is affecting your judgment.” His
tone would have frozen the Serpentine to a thickness of several inches.

Sedgemere, poor man, must owe Papa a very great deal of money.

“
Good day
, Your Grace. Have a pleasant summer.”

Anne did not curtsey, because Sedgemere’s scolding and sniffing had brought her unaccountably near tears. She was wealthy, a commoner, female, and
unmarried. Her transgressions were beyond redemption, but why must Sedgemere blame her for circumstances she’d had no hand in creating?

Why must everybody?

Anne would have made a grand exit toward the Long Water, but some fool duke had trapped her hand in his.

“I must make allowances,” he said, his grip on Anne’s fingers snug. “You’re not used to the undivided attention of so lofty a
personage as I, and the day is rather warm. When next we meet, I assure you I will have the toddling well in hand. I enjoy a challenge, you see. You have a
pleasant summer too, Miss Faraday, and my kindest regards to your dear papa.”

Sedgemere’s demeanor remained crushingly correct as he bowed with utmost graciousness over Anne’s hand. When he tipped his hat to her, she
could have sworn those chilly blue eyes had gained a hint of warmth.

He was laughing at her then, but half the polite world would have seen him bowing over Anne’s hand, so she was at least a private joke.