Sheri Cobb South (10 page)

“Allow me to congratulate you on your pupil’s progress, Sir Aubrey,” said the earl. “Miss Crump’s accomplishments certainly speak well for her tutor.”

“Yes, Miss Crump is full of surprises,” agreed Sir Aubrey, smiling down at her. Feeling a tug on his sleeve, he remembered his promise to the love-struck young nobleman. “Miss Crump, allow me to present my cousin. Viscount Sutcliffe. Sutcliffe, Miss Apollonia Crump.”

The viscount stammered out an invitation to dance, which Polly, glaring at Sir Aubrey, accepted primarily to put the presumptuous baronet in his place.

All in all, it was an unforgettable evening. Polly danced every dance, and was taken in to supper by Lord Camfield, who asked permission to call on her in Marine Parade the next day. She even had an ode composed to her eyes by a rather disheveled young man whose darkly brooding countenance bespoke his poetic sensibilities. It was not at all a bad night’s work for one who scarcely a fortnight ago had toiled behind the counter of Minchin’s Book Emporium.

And yet Polly could not consider the evening an unqualified success.

Nonsense, she told herself sharply as she prepared for bed. It was well after midnight, she was tired, and her feet ached abominably. It had nothing, nothing at all, to do with the fact that Sir Aubrey had never once asked his erstwhile pupil to dance.

Chapter 8

0 Polly, you might have toyed and kissed,

By keeping men off, you keep them on. JOHN GAY,
The Beggar’s Opera

True to his word, Lord Camfield called the next day to inquire if Miss Crump might wish to go for a drive. Polly accepted this invitation eagerly, although whether this was due to a desire to further her acquaintance with the man who might be her father or a need to escape the disturbing presence of Sir Aubrey was a question which she preferred not to examine too closely.

“Well!” remarked Lady Helen to the group at large after Polly and her escort had left the house. “What do you make of that? I own, I would prefer to see Miss Crump with a beau nearer her own age.”

Mr. Brundy, engaged in reading the newspaper, had no opinion to advance on the subject of Miss Crump and her middle-aged swain, but Lady Tabor had more than enough to make up for the shortfall.

“It is a wise man who takes a wife from among his own kind,” she declared, darting in the direction of her host a disapproving glance which never reached its target, being deflected by the front page of the
Times.
“I hope you, Aubrey, will take a lesson from the mistakes of others.”

“Be sure I shall,” promised Sir Aubrey from his seat near the window, from which vantage point he could see the earl handing Polly up into his curricle. “I must confess, I have never seen a more ill-assorted pair—”

Lady Tabor nodded approvingly. “Quite right, son!”

“—than Lord Camfield’s bays. I wonder what he gave for them? Far too much, I’ll wager.”

After Polly’s departure, Sir Aubrey found himself oddly at loose ends, and so betook himself to Raggett’s club, leaving his mother to the tender mercies of her host. The dowager, finding herself alone with the weaver and his wife, announced her intention of visiting first Donaldson’s library to search for the first volume of
The Lost Heir,
and then the Lanes for some shopping. She generously invited Lady Helen to accompany her, but that lady graciously declined, being engaged in beading for Miss Crump a reticule which she was determined to finish simply to spite her husband, who had expressed surprise that his wife would endeavor to manufacture with her own hands an item which she might instead have purchased for an exorbitant sum in any one of the local shops. No sooner had the door closed behind Lady Tabor than Mr. Brundy cast aside his newspaper and grabbed Lady Helen’s hand.

“At last!” he exclaimed. “They’ve gone! Come on, ‘elen!”

“Where are we going?” she asked, reluctantly allowing him to pull her to her feet.

“We’re on our ‘oneymoon, aren’t we?”

“Ethan!” cried his scandalized wife. “In
broad daylight!”

“When your ‘oneymoon cottage turns into a posting ‘ouse, me dear, you learn to take whatever you can get. Evers!” he bellowed for the butler as he propelled his wife inexorably toward the stairs. “If anyone should inquire, Lady ‘elen is not at ‘ome!”

Lady Tabor, meanwhile, paused on the front stoop. It had been exceedingly remiss of her, she decided, not to ask Lady Helen if there were anything she might pick up for her while she was in town. Determined not to be backwards in any attention (for heaven knew the weaver could only benefit from the example set by the Quality), she turned and rapped sharply on the door.

“Evers,” she said when it was opened to her, “ask your mistress if there is anything she requires from town.”

“Begging your pardon, my lady,” Evers replied woodenly, “but her ladyship is not at home.”

“What?” demanded the dowager.

“Her ladyship is not at home,” reiterated Evers with no small satisfaction. He had not forgotten Lady Tabor’s conviction that a member of his staff had stolen her book, and consequently had little love for his master’s houseguest.

“Nonsense, man! I just left her in the drawing room. Here, I’ll ask her myself!”

Brushing aside the butler’s protests, she swept past him and into the drawing room, where she drew up short on the threshold. Mr. Brundy’s freshly ironed newspaper lay in a crumpled heap beside his chair, and a multitude of tiny beads littered the carpet, as well as the sofa where Lady Helen had been seated. Of the room’s former occupants there was no sign, but from somewhere upstairs, the sound of a door closing shattered the silence.

“Ah, flaming youth!” sighed Lady Tabor, and beat a strategic retreat.

* * * *

Polly, freed from the rather crowded confines of the hired house, leaned back against the leather-upholstered seat of Lord Camfield’s curricle and lifted her face to the sun, reveling in the feel of the sea breeze on her skin.

“A lovely day for a drive, is it not, Miss Crump?” asked the earl, charmed by the youthful innocence of this gesture.

“Indeed, it is,” agreed Polly.

“I am pleased to see you are not too fatigued from last night’s festivities,” he observed. “If I may say so, you appeared to be quite the belle of the ball.”

“Everyone was most kind.”   Well,
almost
everyone, excepting only certain unnamed baronets who were too high in the instep to dance with anyone so ungainly as herself. She was struck by the sudden thought that an earl’s daughter, even an illegitimate one, might not be utterly beneath a baronet’s notice.

“Kind?” echoed Lord Camfield. “Nonsense! Enchanted, more like! It is you who are kind, granting the pleasure of your company to one who must seem a veritable Methuselah in your eyes.”

“Oh, no!” cried Polly. “I could never think such a thing of you, sir.”

“Still, it would be a rare young lady who did not prefer the company of a beau her own age.”

Polly stared fixedly at the gloved hands clutched tightly in her lap. “To be sure, other young ladies might value youth and good looks above all else, my lord, but to one who has never known a father’s guidance, wisdom and maturity are no less to be prized.”

Thus encouraged, Lord Camfield turned to regard Polly with an earnestness which she found thrilling. “Miss Crump, do you believe in Fate?”

“Fate, my lord?” she echoed breathlessly.

“Fate, destiny, call it what you will,” he said with an expansive wave of the hand. “Have you ever seen someone for the first time and known, without a doubt, that your lives were unalterably linked?”

“Oh, yes!” cried Polly, raising glowing eyes to his. He had felt it too! He had recognized her at once, just as Leandro’s father had in
The Lost Heir.
“Yes, it was exactly like that!”

Overcome with emotion, Lord Camfield allowed the reins to slip unnoticed from his hand. His spirited horses, unmoved by the touching scene to which they were witnesses, seized the opportunity afforded by their newfound freedom and picked up their paces accordingly, obliging the dazed earl to recall his surroundings.

“This is not the place to speak of such things,” he said reluctantly, having regained control of his team, “but I hope to say more on this head very soon.”

“I should be pleased to hear it, my lord,” said Polly demurely, although her heart sank at the distraction which had delayed the fruition of her hopes.

Still, she must be pleased with her progress thus far. By the time Lord Camfield returned her to Marine Parade, she was resigned to bear with patience the little time remaining before the earl publicly acknowledged her as his own. For now, it was enough to know that
he
knew, and apparently welcomed the knowledge. Consequently, upon entering the house, she greeted her host with civility and her hostess with warmth.  If Mr. Brundy’s cravat was askew and Lady Helen’s hair not so expertly coiffed as usual, Polly’s tumultuous thoughts prevented her from taking notice of such trivialities. It was not until she went upstairs to put off her bonnet and pelisse that she recalled Lady Tabor’s book, still hidden beneath her mattress.    Now that an announcement seemed imminent, she need not fear arousing that astute lady’s suspicions. Polly did not recall seeing the dowager below (nor, for that matter, had she seen Sir Aubrey, although she would have vehemently denied any charge that she had looked for him), so she slipped the book from its hiding place and returned it to its proper place. And so it was that, when Lady Tabor returned from Donaldson’s Library triumphantly bearing a replacement for the lost volume, she was puzzled to discover her own copy lying on the bedside table, precisely where she had left it.

* * * *

Marine Parade soon lived up to its name, for following Polly’s triumph at the assembly, a veritable cavalcade of young men descended upon Mr. Brundy’s hired residence, each bearing a posy of flowers and inquiring of a world-weary Evers if Miss Crump were at home. Although the ubiquitous Lord Camfield was on this occasion absent, his place was amply filled by a pair of captains stationed at the military camp just north of town, a young poet in the Byronic mold, and Sir Aubrey’s young cousin, Viscount Sutcliffe.

“I ‘ave to ‘and it to you, Aubrey,” said Mr. Brundy with some satisfaction, watching from the doorway as his wife dispensed tea and cakes to Miss Crump’s court. “At this rate, we’ll ‘ave ‘er wed and off me ‘ands in no time.”

“Indeed!” muttered Sir Aubrey, less pleased with the sight that met his eyes. “I’ll swear, I haven’t seen so many useless whelps since I last visited my kennels! I wonder which one she’ll have.”

“Any one of them may take ‘er with me blessing,” declared Mr. Brundy with feeling.

“Sutcliffe’s expectations are greatest, since he’ll be a marquess someday,” Sir Aubrey continued as if he had not heard this speech. “Still, I wouldn’t advise Miss Crump to entertain hopes in that direction. My cousin Inglewood would sooner cut out his tongue than give his consent to such a match. No, if it’s a title she wants, she’d best stick with Camfield.”

Far from wearing the willow for the earl, however, Polly was at that moment listening attentively as the poet, Percival Mayhew, read his most recent composition, an ode which, according to its author, had been inspired by Miss Crump’s perfection of face and form. Sir Aubrey’s lip curled derisively as Mr. Mayhew struck a dramatic stance before the fireplace, his carefully disheveled black locks falling artfully over smoldering dark eyes. His black cravat was tied a la Byron in a large floppy bow, and Sir Aubrey had little doubt that, had there been any way to acquire a clubfoot in imitation of his idol, Mr. Mayhew would have been quick to avail himself of it. Dismissing the poet as being of no importance, Sir Aubrey returned his attention to Miss Crump, and was amused to find that Mr. Mayhew was beginning to lose his audience.

Indeed, by the time the poet had embarked upon his third stanza, Polly had begun to grow weary of hearing herself compared to a naiad, her eyes likened to twin pools, her teeth to pearls, her ears to seashells, and her hair to brilliant tongues of flame—a rather jarring departure from his watery metaphor which was oddly effective, in that it had the happy result of jolting awake his less appreciative listeners.

Her restless gaze began to canvass the room in search of some new distraction, flitting briefly from one guest to another until, as if of its own accord, it settled on the tall, slender figure of Sir Aubrey, leaning negligently against the doorjamb. He met her bored look with one of cynical amusement, whereupon Polly turned her attention back to the poet and schooled her features into an expression of rapt admiration.

That her admiration might be sincere was an idea so ludicrous that Sir Aubrey was able to dismiss it out of hand. He wondered if perhaps she was not quite as certain of Lord Camfield as she would wish. In such a case, he could only suppose her to be keeping all her options open, and silently applauded her forethought. Although Mr. Mayhew lacked the lure of a title, he was possessed of a comfortable fortune; still, if Miss Crump were obliged to spend the rest of her life listening to such twaddle, Sir Aubrey had no doubt she would have earned every farthing.

“I say, Mayhew,” cried one of the two captains, when the poet had concluded his opus amid applause which was perhaps more polite than enthusiastic. “It’s dashed unfair, the advantage you versifiers have over the rest of us fellows. How, pray, is a soldier to compete? Shall I bring you the head of Bonaparte on a platter, Miss Crump? I shall swim all the way to St. Helena to detach it from his neck, if that is what you wish.”

From his vantage point in the doorway, Sir Aubrey spoke up. “Are we to infer that you see Miss Crump in the role of Salome, Captain? I must protest.”

“Indeed, Sir Aubrey?” challenged the captain. “On what grounds?”

“Purely objective ones. Having seen Miss Crump dance, I find it highly unlikely that the sight could inspire any man to perform so reckless a feat as murder.”

Young Viscount Sutcliffe, who had been silent up to this point, felt compelled to spring to his idol’s defense, “
I
think Miss Crump’s dancing is p—
perfect
.”