Sheri Cobb South (2 page)

“Rose, my lady.”

“Very well, Rose. That will be all.”

“Yes, my lady.” Rose bobbed a curtsy and exited the room.

Left to her own devices, Lady Fieldhurst divested herself of her damp pelisse and gown, then opened the double doors of the clothes press. Here was one small act of rebellion that her friend Lady Dunnington had heartily approved: after a scant two months of widowhood, she was going into half-mourning, exchanging her somber black crapes and bombazines for less funereal grays. She reached into the clothes press and withdrew a dinner gown of lustrous gray silk with a fine black stripe woven into the fabric, then laid it out almost lovingly on the bed. The garment might raise a few eyebrows despite its elegantly simple lines and modest
décolletage,
but the viscountess found the potential disapproval of her fellow guests less distasteful than the hypocrisy of mourning a philanderer whose violent death had almost sent her to the gallows. She was already the subject of gossip; she might as well give the tabbies something worth talking about. But even as she had made this momentous decision, she acknowledged her own cowardice in waiting to act upon it until she was well out of London.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a woman’s voice coming from the next room and the sound of a door shutting a bit more forcefully than was strictly necessary.

“—Like a moonling, making sheep’s eyes at Emma Hollingshead!”

“The lad is not yet two-and-twenty,” a male voice responded more calmly. “Besides, Emma’s a deuced pretty girl. I’d be more concerned if he
didn’t
make sheep’s eyes at her.”

“Surely you have higher ambitions for your only son than to see him wed the daughter of a country squire!” objected the woman.

“And the granddaughter of a marquess on her mother’s side,” the man pointed out. “Added to the fact that their land borders ours, I can think of worse matches for the boy. But never you fear: Lady Anne has ambition enough to match your own. She’ll give poor Robert his marching orders quickly enough.” He chuckled at the prospect.

The woman, however, was not amused. “Just as she’s given Mr. Meriwether his?” she retorted, her skepticism evident even through the dividing wall.

Lady Fieldhurst, cast in the role of unintentional eavesdropper, decided it was high time the people in the next room were made aware of her presence. She returned to the clothes press, opened the double doors, and shut them with sufficient force to make the heavy piece of furniture tremble. The couple next door immediately fell silent.

* * * *

At half-past eight, having arrayed herself in the gray silk gown, Lady Fieldhurst left her room and made her way to the drawing room where, Rose had informed her, the family would gather before dinner. Rose’s talents as a hairdresser had not disappointed: Julia’s rejuvenated locks were swept high on her head, with little tendrils allowed to escape at the temples in order to soften a deceptively severe style. As she approached the drawing-room door, voices within the room alerted the viscountess to the fact that she was not the first arrival.

“You might have at least sent the carriage for him, Mama,” complained a well-modulated contralto. “He can hardly be expected to walk all the way from the village in this weather.”

“If he elects to remain at home rather than brave the elements, that is his decision,” replied a cooler voice which Lady Fieldhurst recognized as that of her hostess. “If the weather proves too great a deterrent, then perhaps his affections are not so firmly engaged as you suppose. I need not remind you that he has made no attempt to speak to your father on the subject.”

“No doubt he knows what sort of reception he might expect!”

It seemed to Lady Fieldhurst as if she were destined to be an eavesdropper will she or nill she. As she hovered in the hall wondering how best to make her presence known, Lady Anne Hollingshead addressed her daughter in conciliatory tones.

“Surely you cannot fault your father for that. With your birth and beauty, my dear, you might look a great deal higher. We only want you to look about before throwing yourself away on a penniless young man without birth or breeding—

“Mama, how can you say such a thing? He is family!”

Lady Anne made a derisive sound which in a lesser personage would have been called a snort. “Wrong side of the blanket, or near enough as makes no odds.”

Lady Fieldhurst decided it was high time to announce herself before she could make any more awkward discoveries about her fellow guests. She cleared her throat quite audibly, then sailed into the room. Two guilty countenances met her gaze for the briefest of moments before chagrin was masked by smiles.

“My dear Lady Fieldhurst, what a fetching frock,” said Lady Anne. If the slightly raised eyebrow with which she regarded this creation was intended to shift Julia’s attention to her own decision to cast off her blacks, it was singularly successful. However, her ladyship’s voice held no note of censure as she urged her guest forward. “Do
come and meet my elder daughter. Emma, my dear, make your curtsy to Lady Fieldhurst.”

A dark-haired beauty of about twenty, Emma was less skilled than her mother in the social art of dissembling. Although she curtsied prettily enough, her heightened color and sparkling eyes betrayed her volatile emotional state.

“How do you do, Miss Hollingshead,” responded Lady Fieldhurst, returning the younger woman’s curtsy.

“I am sure Emma will have a great deal to ask you,” continued Lady Anne, seemingly oblivious to her daughter’s inner turmoil. “She is to be presented at court next spring and have her Season in London. I only hope she may enjoy a fraction of your own success. How well I remember your debut! You were quite the Toast of the Season, as I recall.”

The viscountess, seeing Emma Hollingshead’s face assume a mulish aspect, surmised that the approaching London Season was another bone of contention between mother and daughter. She could imagine few things more disagreeable than recounting her social successes—which had eventually culminated in a brilliant yet miserable marriage—to an obviously hostile audience. In fact, her debut had been a rather modest affair in Bath; it had been here that she had first been introduced to Frederick Bertram, Viscount Fieldhurst. The social triumph Lady Hollingshead recalled had taken place the following spring, after her whirlwind marriage. She remembered little of the court presentation itself, so fearful she had been of somehow disappointing the awe-inspiring gentleman who had swept her off her feet. It was perhaps inevitable that she had eventually done exactly that, and he had never let her forget it. She had no intention, however, of divulging these old hurts to women who were little more than strangers.

“It was all so long ago, I fear I can remember little beyond how absurd my high-waisted gown looked when worn over the hoops required at court,” she told Miss Hollingshead apologetically.

“You are too modest by half,” declared her hostess. “Surely you must remember more than that!”

“Now that I think of it, I recall how shockingly my head ached from the aigrette of ostrich plumes my abigail had fastened in my hair. I do believe the woman must have nailed the thing to my skull.”

Although these less than glowing recollections found no favor with Lady Anne, they won a reluctant smile from her daughter, who was able to greet the next arrival with more composure. This proved to be a very young man dressed in the fashionable extravagance of the
Incroyable,
and Lady Fieldhurst wondered fleetingly if he might be the object of Miss Hollingshead’s affections. A moment’s reflection, however, was sufficient to remind her that one given to extremes of fashion would be unlikely to risk his finery by walking to dinner in a rainstorm; nor did the young man’s raiment show any signs of his having done so. When a portly gentleman and a sharp-featured woman followed him into the room, the older man scolding the younger on the shirt points of his collar—the height of which made it impossible for him to turn his head—Julia realized that this was the quarreling couple in the bedchamber next to hers. The young dandy who was even now making a beeline for Emma Hollingshead could only be their son.

“Lady Fieldhurst, allow me to present Lord and Lady Kendall, and the Honourable Robert Kendall.” Lady Anne performed the introductions with practiced grace. “The Kendalls are our nearest neighbors—except for the vicar, that is—and Lord Kendall is Justice of the Peace.”

Lady Fieldhurst was surprised to discover that the Kendalls were in fact local, but before she had time to wonder at their occupation of one of the guest bedchambers, Lady Kendall supplied the explanation.

“I must thank you for allowing us the use of your guest chambers,” she told her hostess. “I shudder to think what my gown would have looked like had I been obliged to pile in and out of a carriage in this rain. As for Robert,” she added, scowling at her son, “I daresay he would never have consented to leave the house for fear of getting his coat wet.”

Unfortunately, this rider was wasted. Young Mr. Kendall, listening with rapt attention to something Miss Hollingshead was saying, showed no sign of having heard his mother at all.

The drawing-room party was soon joined by others. Sir Gerald Hollingshead was the first of these, entering the room with the curious rigidity of the English country gentleman unwillingly stuffed into evening clothes. Next came the schoolroom set. Young Mr. Philip Hollingshead, on holiday from Eton, was almost as tall as a man, yet still possessed the smooth, rounded cheeks of childhood. His sister Susannah, the younger daughter of the household, was clad in demure white muslin with a pale blue sash, her unbound hair tied back with a matching blue ribbon. Lady Anne introduced her children with the air of one bestowing a rare treat, leading Lady Fieldhurst to surmise that they were not often granted the privilege of dining with their elders. Miss Susannah was accompanied by her governess, Miss Harriet Grantham, a once-handsome woman whose plum-colored satin gown had clearly seen better days. Hard on their heels came the butler to announce a pair of new arrivals.

“Mr. Cyril Danvers and Mr. Jasper Carrington,” he intoned.

A short, rather frail man of sober attire and scholarly mien entered the room, accompanied by a raven-haired gentleman of indeterminate years whose swarthy complexion suggested a career spent in India or the West Indies. Any confusion Lady Fieldhurst might have felt as to which one was which was soon put to rest as Lady Anne greeted her guests.

“Mr. Danvers, how pleased I am that you could come,” she said, offering her hand to the soberly dressed scholar. “I do hope you did not walk all the way from the vicarage. If the weather should bring on an attack of catarrh, I should never forgive myself.”

“No, indeed, my lady! I should normally have spent such an inclement evening at home writing my sermon, but when Mr. Carrington offered me a place in his curricle, the prospect of good food and congenial company was too much to resist.”

“In that case, Mr. Carrington, we stand in your debt,” said Lady Anne, turning her attention to the dark gentleman.

“I assure you, my lady, the pleasure was all mine,” he demurred.

Having exchanged pleasantries all around, the group indulged in idle chatter until the dinner gong sounded promptly at nine o’clock.

“Doubtless the weather proved too much for Mr. Meriwether,” observed Sir Gerald, casting his elder daughter a glance that was not wholly without sympathy. “Shall we go?”

As Lady Fieldhurst was the highest ranking of the female guests, it was to her that he offered his arm. The others followed suit, pairing off according to rank, which left Miss Grantham to bring up the rear in solitary splendor. They had just reached the door when it burst open to admit a tall, bespectacled young man in outmoded evening wear which, besides being much worn at the knees and elbows, was decidedly damp. His windswept hair owed more to current weather conditions than to curling tongs, and his clocked stockings were liberally spattered with mud.

“Pray forgive my tardiness,” he addressed the company in somewhat breathless accents. “The rain is letting up, but the road beyond the village is well nigh impassable in places, and the river is rising. I can only hope the bridge will not wash out.”

“Indeed,” said her hostess without enthusiasm. “Lady Fieldhurst, may I present Mr. Colin Meriwether, the curate and our distant cousin.”

Color flooded Emma Hollingshead’s glowing countenance, and she dropped Mr. Carrington’s arm as if she would have flown to the curate’s side. Good breeding restrained her from committing such a shocking
faux pas,
but her inclinations were clear enough, as evidenced by her mother’s warning scowl as well as the glowering look bent upon the late arrival by the magnificent Mr. Kendall.

Lady Fieldhurst, although having sworn off men on her own account, had no objection to observing the romantic pursuits of others. Given a choice, she would put her money on Mr. Meriwether to carry the day; aside from Miss Hollingshead’s obvious partiality, the young man’s presence in the face of such discouragement suggested a strength of character sufficient to overcome any obstacles Lady Anne might place in his way.

In fact, decided the viscountess, her friend Lady Dunnington had been quite wrong in her assessment. The next four weeks should prove anything but dull.

Chapter 2

In Which a Dinner Party Draws to a Tragic Conclusion

The company now assembled, Mr. Meriwether offered the governess his arm with every indication of pleasure, and the entire party filed into the dining room. Lady Fieldhurst was seated at her host’s right, as befitted her rank, and noted with some surprise that Mr. Meriwether occupied the corresponding position at the opposite end of the table; had the rules of precedence been strictly observed, Lord Kendall—not the curate—would have been given the place of honor at Lady Anne’s right hand. The viscountess suspected that her hostess’s reasoning had little to do with precedence, and everything to do with placing as much distance as possible between the ineligible young man and her eldest daughter. Indeed, so cleverly had she arranged the seating that the young lovers, seated on the same side of the table with both Mr. Robert Kendall and Miss Susannah Hollingshead between them, could not even make eye contact.