Sheri Cobb South (19 page)

“It is the largest of a set of matching sapphires in your Grace’s possession,” Doggett continued. “The remaining stones comprise a parure of a necklace, bracelet, and earrings. These are usually given to each new duchess upon her marriage, as a wedding gift from her husband.”

“Et tu, Brute?”
James asked, wincing.

“Beg pardon, your Grace?” asked the valet, bewildered.

James shook his head. “Never mind.”

Chapter 13

If James suspected Lord Torrington of exaggerating his new-found celebrity, five minutes in the Holbrook ballroom was sufficient to inform him that, if anything, his friend had understated the case. James was still in the act of thanking his host and hostess for their kind invitation when he was beset by a hoard of fashionably dressed strangers, all begging Lady Holbrook for an introduction. Her ladyship was happy to oblige, to the point that James, struggling valiantly to match names with faces, could not have identified with certainty more than a half-dozen of his fellow guests within half an hour of making their acquaintance. Eventually, however, amongst the host of unfamiliar names and equally unfamiliar faces, there was spoken a name he knew, a face which had once filled his every waking moment, and haunted his dreams at night.

“—And this,” said her ladyship, ushering forward an uncommonly lovely young lady in palest pink, “is Miss Cynthia Prescott. Miss Prescott, his Grace, the duke of Montford.”

She looked exactly as he remembered her. Oh, her dark hair was more fashionably styled, and she had thrown off the demure muslins of the rural beauty for the silks and satins of the modish debutante, but in all other ways, all ways that mattered, she was unchanged. He was surprised that this should be so; he had thought she must look older in some way. So very much had happened to him since he had last seen her that it seemed much longer than the mere four months it was.

“Your Grace.” Miss Prescott sank into a deep curtsy. “The duke and I were acquainted once upon a time, Lady Holbrook, although he has grown so fine I doubt he still remembers me.”

“Remember you?” James echoed. “Of course I do! How could I forget you?”

“Very prettily said, your Grace,” nodded Lady Holbrook, beaming her approval.

“Oh, listen!” cried Miss Prescott. “The musicians have struck up the waltz. Do you recall how we used to waltz in Fairford, your Grace?”

“Indeed, I do,” said James, quick to take his cue. “Will you do me the honor?”

He offered his arm and Miss Prescott, smiling shyly up at him, placed her gloved hand upon it. As he led her onto the floor, a buzz of conversation followed them.

“—What a striking a couple they make!”

“—No hope for the rest of us, not now that Montford has thrown his hat into the ring.”

“—Old acquaintances, I hear. Unfair advantage, that, what?”

Oblivious to it all, James was aware only of a pair of large, bright eyes sparkling up at him in a way that Miss Darrington’s never had. Nor, for that matter, had Miss Darrington ever clung to his arm as if he were her one hope of heaven. The invitation in Miss Prescott’s gaze was as a balm to his bruised heart. He would know better, this time, than to take her overtures seriously. He would demonstrate to Miss Prescott, and to the world, that he was no longer a naïve curate wearing his heart on his sleeve; he was the duke of Montford, and he could play the game with the best of them.

“Tell me. Miss Prescott, what do you think of London?” he asked, settling his arm about her waist as the dance commenced.

“Oh, I like it very well.”

“And it obviously likes you.”

She peeped up at him through her lashes. “Everyone has been very kind to a simple country girl.”

“A ‘simple country girl’?” James echoed in skeptical accents. “Doing it much too brown, Miss Prescott. Surely you cannot be speaking of the belle of Fairford!”

They fell into reminiscences of village life, and while neither was tactless enough to mention James’s unsuccessful courtship, both were very much aware of their shared history. The memory lent a certain poignancy to the intimacy of the waltz.

“But what of you, Mr. Weather—oh, I beg your pardon! Of course I should say your Grace! How do you find the Metropolis?”

“Terrifying,” replied James without hesitation. “My butler scares me to death.”

Miss Prescott laughed aloud at this sally, a tinkling, musical laugh that made more than one head turn to regard her with mingled admiration, envy, and regret. She was still laughing when James led her off the floor, and her cheeks were charmingly flushed—whether from laughter, the exertions of the dance, or something else, only she and her partner knew for certain.

Her father was waiting with her mother against the wall to receive her, word of his daughter’s triumph having reached him in the card room.

“Mama, Papa, what do you think?” cried Miss Prescott gaily. “The poor duke is being shockingly bullied by his butler. Do tell him he must escape the fellow for one evening, and dine with us!”

Sir Reginald Prescott was much struck with this suggestion. “Dashed if that ain’t a fine notion! You come and take your mutton with us, your Grace.”

“Yes, pray join us for dinner one evening next week—shall we say Thursday?” seconded Lady Prescott.

“Won’t be like it’s the first time. His Grace was forever underfoot at our place in Fairford,” Sir Reginald added as an aside to anyone within hearing. “Always knew he was destined for great things even then, didn’t we, puss?”

“Of course, Papa,” agreed Miss Prescott, tucking her gloved hand more securely into the crook of James’s elbow.

“Pray step back, Lady Holbrook, I beg you,” beseeched James, laughing. “Miss Prescott and her father are telling such bald-faced lies, I fear a lightning bolt may strike at any moment. In truth, the Prescotts knew me as a parish curate with nothing to recommend me but a modest talent for the violin.”

“So you are a musician!” exclaimed Mrs. Dunworthy, hovering nearby in the hopes of maneuvering the duke into dancing with her daughter, a thin, sandy-haired girl with an unfortunate tendency to blend into the wall. “I am hosting a musical evening on Monday next. Do say you will come and favor us with a song!”

James quickly demurred, but was obliged to consent to attend the Dunworthys’ musical evening, dine with the Prescotts, and solicit Miss Dunworthy for the supper dance before he was able to make good his escape.

It may be that this last displeased Miss Prescott, or perhaps she had not yet been in London long enough to learn discretion. Whatever the reason, when after supper she found herself alone with Miss Dunworthy in the retiring room set aside for the ladies, that damsel’s singing of the duke’s praises touched a raw nerve.

“Is he not the most agreeable gentleman of all your acquaintance?” Miss Dunworthy enthused. “Only fancy! He promised to come to Mama’s musical evening, and said he looked forward to hearing me play my new sonata.”

Miss Prescott, occupied in the application of lip rouge to her rosebud mouth, cast a disdainful look at her companion’s reflection in the looking glass. “He was always polite, even before he became a duke,” she conceded with a marked lack of enthusiasm.

“You knew him before?” asked Miss Dunworthy, agog with curiosity. “Were you well acquainted?”

“Very well indeed! In fact—” She broke off, eyes demurely downcast. “But I must say no more upon that head.”

“What? Oh, what?”

“You must never tell another living soul,” commanded Miss Prescott.

“No, never!” breathed Miss Dunworthy.

Miss Prescott took her hand and squeezed it confidingly. “In fact, he once asked me to marry him.”

“Never say you turned him down!”

“What else could I do? He was quite shockingly poor in those days, you know. My father would never have countenanced such a match,” she added, relishing the rôle of romantic heroine.

“And now? Does he still love you, do you suppose?”

Miss Prescott lowered her eyes with maidenly modesty. “I’m sure I couldn’t say.”

To her chagrin, she realized it was true. Certainly their waltz had been all that was agreeable, and he had paid her several very pretty compliments. And yet this in itself was disturbing, for there had been none of the blushing and stammering that had characterized his courtship before. Surely his utter lack of constraint must argue against a heart so deeply engaged as it once had been.

Miss Prescott thrust this unpleasant thought from her mind. She had captivated him once; she could do so again. Turning back to the mirror, she pinched her cheeks to give them a rosy blush, then sallied forth to conquer.

As for Miss Dunworthy, she was a very loyal girl, and so overcome was she at becoming the confidante of the Peerless Miss Prescott that, had the other young people present been at all kind to her, she very likely would have taken the secret to her grave. But later in the evening, finding herself alone and ignored in the midst of a merry group of persons her own age, Miss Dunworthy saw the opportunity to be, for once in her short life, the cynosure of all eyes. And so, when there came a brief lull in the conversation, she hesitated only for a moment before plunging into speech.

“Did you know,” she said to the group at large in a nervous, high-pitched tone, “that Miss Prescott and the duke of Montford were once almost engaged to be married?”

* * * *

James arrived at the Prescotts’ rented lodgings the following Thursday fully expecting to be one of a number of dinner guests. Great was his surprise when the butler ushered him to the drawing room and he found himself alone with the family.

“Ah, your Grace!” exclaimed Mrs. Prescott, gliding forward to greet him. “Always such an excellent young man— so very prompt!”

Even to James’s untrained eye, her demi-trained gown of spangled satin over gauze seemed a bit overdone for a quiet family dinner. The same might be said for Miss Prescott’s ensemble, whose yards of celestial blue satin and silver lamé seemed more suited to presentation at Court than dining with an old friend. As he was by no means an authority on ladies’ clothing, however, he dismissed the fanciful thought and, upon hearing the dinner gong sound, offered his hostess his arm.

One glimpse of the dining room was sufficient to inform him that, however small the guest list, this was no casual family dinner. To be sure, all the leaves had been removed from the gleaming mahogany table, but the abbreviated surface that remained was all but obliterated beneath settings of gilt-rimmed china, sparkling crystal, gleaming silver, and starched linen napery.

“I—I’m not worthy of such magnificence,” said James, blinking.

“Nonsense, my boy!” protested Mr. Prescott, taking his place at the head of the shortened table. “Nothing’s too good for our duke, you know.”

Mrs. Prescott, seated opposite her husband, seconding this assessment, added, “You might have knocked me over with a feather when Mr. Bainbridge—you do remember Mr. Bainbridge, the vicar?—when Mr. Bainbridge wrote to tell us the news.”

“I remember Mr. Bainbridge very well. Tell me, how does he go on?”

“Oh, very well, very well indeed,” Mrs. Prescott assured him, dismissing the vicar with a wave of her bejeweled hand. “But do tell us about your holdings in Montford, your Grace. Mr. Bainbridge was under the impression they are quite extensive.”

Mr. Prescott drank deeply from his wineglass, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “I’ll wager they bring in a tidy sum in rents, what?”

James found himself extremely reluctant to discuss so personal a subject, especially with footmen milling about the table pouring wine into goblets and ladling soup into bowls from a large tureen. He sought refuge in a reply that was at once evasive and entirely honest. “Truth to tell, I hardly know. The accident, you know, interrupted my visit, so I have not yet had an opportunity to view the property for myself. But do tell me all the news from Fairford! How go the squire and his lady, and young Thomas?”

Seeing his wife glaring at him from the other end of the table, Mr. Prescott tucked one corner of his napkin into the neckband of his shirt. “Nice to see you haven’t forgotten your friends, anyway.”

“Indeed yes,” agreed Mrs. Prescott. “And so very gracious of you not to hold a grudge against our poor chick for—”

“Mama!” urged Miss Prescott
sotto voce
from her seat opposite James.

“Well you know for what, so there’s no use my repeating it. Although your kind attentions to our little Cynthia at Lady Holbrook’s ball were such that I wanted to weep!”

James, by this time thoroughly uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation, was prompted by some demon to beg his hostess’s pardon. “Had I known my dancing with Miss Prescott would have so unhappy a result, I should have yielded my place to another.”

“No, no!” Mrs. Prescott protested. “I’m sure I never meant that! It is only when I think of the pain you must have suffered—”

“In that case, ma’am, let me set your mind at ease. Your daughter was quite right to give me the answer she did. One has only to see her in her proper setting, surrounded by beaux, to know she would have been wasted on a village curate.”

Across the table, Miss Prescott turned quite pink with pleasure, while Mrs. Prescott exhaled a blissful sigh. “Very prettily said, your Grace.”

“Ah, but you’re not a village curate anymore,” Mr. Prescott pointed out.

“Very true, sir, but neither is she merely the belle of Fairford. It appears that we were both destined for bigger and, let us hope, better things.”

Assuming that Miss Prescott’s embarrassment at her parents’ machinations must exceed even his own, James cast a glance of sympathetic understanding in her direction, only to experience a rude awakening. Miss Prescott’s head was modestly bowed, but she smiled coyly up at him through her long, curling lashes.

James’s hackles rose. He was forcibly reminded of the annual Fairford Christmas Hunt, in which Mr. Prescott was an avid participant, and wondered if this was how the unfortunate fox felt. The Prescotts’ intentions could not have been plainer if the butler had met him at the door with the huntsman’s cry of “view halloo!”