Lysander's Lady Read online

  ‘Oh, Aunt Hetty, Kate if you please, else I shall feel I am in deep disgrace!’

  The Dowager bestowed upon her a smile of gracious approval. ‘We are about to take a nuncheon, Lysander. Shall you join us?’

  ‘Thank you, mama, but unfortunately I am engaged at my club.’ Quite why he proffered this hastily-invented excuse Lysander was at a loss to explain, even to himself.

  ‘Oh, these clubs! Whatever would gentlemen do without them?’ asked the Dowager of no one in particular. ‘Come, Kate, we must make do with our own company.’

  Lysander had had a trying morning. None could blame him for wishing to seek the refuge of his club, yet, absurdly, the very sight of Miss Honeywell’s disappointed face as she turned away to follow her godmother back to her boudoir was an unuttered reproach.

  ‘Get all this—this clutter out of the way!’ he ordered, venting his guilty annoyance on the unfortunate Bates. ‘The place is like a posting-house!’

  So saying, he strode into the book-room, closing the door behind him with what sounded, even to his own ears, to be unnecessary firmness. As he stood tapping his fingers in angry contemplation upon the standing desk, he recalled that if not to Brooks’s, there was one other call he ought to make without loss of time. Presently he was walking briskly up Old Bond Street and turning in at the entrance to Mr. Jackson’s Boxing Academy. Here he was closeted with the proprietor for a while, and when he left John Jackson accompanied him to the door.

  ‘If, as you believe, sir, it’s all a hum, then no harm’s done. But to judge from what I’ve heard here and about, the bets are laid heavy already. I’ll see Tom Cribb today and work out with him what’s best to be done.’

  ‘I had thought of sending the bays down to Mansell.’

  ‘Yes, any stranger attempting to interfere with them there would be more readily remarked upon than here in London. You can trust his lordship’s stable-lads?’

  Mr. Derwent smiled grimly. ‘Heaven help any miscreant who attempts to injure a beast of mine under their care!’

  ‘That’s well enough. I will send word to you tonight, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, John.’

  As he was about to walk away, Jackson spoke quietly in warning. ‘Mr. Derwent, not only the bays may be at danger.’

  ‘Me, d’you mean?’

  ‘And your curricle. With one already gone—I’ll pass the word in Long Acre.’

  Nodding his thanks, Mr. Derwent made his leisurely way to Brooks’s, exchanging bows and greetings as he went, and perfectly conscious of the admiring glances cast his way.

  ‘There goes Derwent on the strut,’ sighed one exquisite to his wasp-waisted friend. ‘Now why cannot I get a coat to set like that across the shoulders?’

  ‘Because you ain’t got the shoulders!’ retorted his companion, which remark occasioned a marked coldness between the two gentlemen for the rest of the day.

  Other than passers-by had observed the elegance of Mr. Derwent’s attire. Miss Honeywell, watching his departure from Charles Street, could not but reflect that, however fashionable his apparel, it in no way detracted from the manliness of his appearance.

  The Dowager and her newly-acquired goddaughter were enjoying a comfortable cose over their timbale de macaroni and cheesecakes. ‘I think it a very good thing that you may not enter into Society at once,’ declared her ladyship. ‘Coming from what must be a relatively provincial scene to fashionable London is no small step.’ She put aside her plate and poured herself a cup of chocolate from a fine baluster pot, engraved with the Derwent arms. ‘There is your wardrobe to be thought on—though, to be sure, you appear to be well provided for in that respect.’ She eyed Miss Honeywell’s becoming loose robe of worked jaconet muslin, with bodice cut deeply coeur, with some misgiving. ‘You—ah, you don’t have any clothes more appropriate to your sad circumstances?’

  ‘My mother had the greatest dislike of mourning and forbade me to wear it when papa died,’ explained Miss Honeywell with no great show of emotion.

  ‘Well, of course, living in such remote places there was no need to observe the conventions, but here people will think it odd, you know.’

  Her goddaughter barely repressed a smile. ‘Cape Town is not quite in far Cathay, Aunt Hetty!’

  ‘No, of course not, and I am sure I don’t have to tell you how to go on in that respect. You were doubtless very devoted to your father, Kate?’

  ‘No,’ replied Kate composedly. ‘I was not, nor he to me. He was a stern martinet, entirely lacking in humour and the small kindnesses that go to make up a family life. He never made the least push to engage my affections, and I cannot pretend grief where I do not feel it.’

  ‘But—your mother!’ gasped the horrified Dowager.

  ‘Will go on very much better without him. She did not discover until after their nuptials that, had he not married before his thirtieth birthday, he would have lost a very considerable legacy.’

  The Dowager, transfixed in the act of dipping a biscuit into her chocolate, murmured ‘Oh!’ faintly, and hastily changed the subject. ‘Tell me—in strictest confidence, of course!—there haven’t been any attachments prior to your leaving the Cape?’

  ‘Not on my part, I assure you, though several gentlemen did ask my father’s permission to address me.’

  ‘But none of them was to your liking?’

  ‘One I did think might suit, and as he was an Earl’s son, papa was well pleased.’

  The Dowager did a rapid mental review of all the Earls’ sons who might have visited the Cape in the recent past without arriving at any satisfactory conclusion.

  ‘Did he—I hate to say it, my dear—did he cry off?’

  ‘Cry off? Not he! He took me walking in the woods near my home, and—I later discovered—richly bribed my abigail to drop well behind us and pay no heed to any protests of mine. He then pressed his attentions upon me, which was not at all to my liking. He had hot sticky hands, too!’ she added meditatively.

  A loud plop informed them that her ladyship’s biscuit had dropped into her chocolate. ‘Wh-what did you do?’ she quavered.

  ‘I boxed his ears and sent him to the rightabout,’ said Miss Honeywell simply.

  Her ladyship found herself at a stand. Earls’ sons, even those with hot sticky hands, did not grow upon every bush, yet here was her unpredictable goddaughter telling her she had turned one down almost without giving the matter a thought.

  ‘Was—was that quite wise of you, Kate?’

  Miss Honeywell’s beautiful eyes opened very wide. ‘Wise, Aunt Hetty? Was that gentlemanly behaviour? Do you suppose Mr. Derwent would have acted in such a manner?’

  ‘He—well, of course he would never permit his emotions to overrule his discretion,’ stammered his astonished parent.

  ‘He has such excellent address,’ went on Miss Honeywell dreamily. ‘I collect, however, that he is something of a rake and much addicted to betting on horses.’

  The Dowager bristled. ‘A rake? Who could possibly have told you such a thing?’

  ‘Perhaps I was at fault,’ allowed her goddaughter, ‘but I fancied—Lord Glendower seemed to hint at it.’

  ‘Fustian nonsense!’ returned her ladyship tartly. ‘I don’t deny that Lysander does wager more than I care for, but he is no gamester.’

  ‘And he is not a rake either?’ The disappointment in the girl’s voice went far to convince Lady Glendower that she had no notion of what she was talking about.

  ‘Of course not, you silly child!’ she said kindly.

  Miss Honeywell looked quite cast down, then her face brightened. ‘But you, as his mama, would be the last person to hear about his adventures with the muslin company!’ Shocked though she was by this forthrightness, the Dowager could appreciate the truth of this home thrust, and embarked on a carefully worded vindication of her son’s character.

  ‘All gentlemen must learn to—to cut their milk teeth at an early age, for they are exposed to the realities and harshness of life in a wa
y we sheltered females are not.’

  A choked sound checked her flow of explanation and she discovered Miss Honeywell to be laughing immoderately. ‘Dear Aunt Hetty,’ she chortled. ‘It is a delightful fancy, but I should have thought Mr. Derwent more like to be cutting his wisdom teeth! He is not, I am persuaded, in any way physically retarded?’

  ‘Certainly not!’ snapped the Dowager, indignation getting the better of discretion. ‘He is on the point of becoming betrothed to the Lady Sophia Trennick, a very well-connected young lady. I expect the notice to appear quite soon in the Gazette.’

  ‘I see.’ Miss Honeywell gave this disclosure her serious consideration, while her godmother wondered uneasily if she had said rather too much. ‘And once that appears he is irretrievably shackled?’

  ‘Yes, I fear he—what can you mean, Kate?’

  ‘You don’t care for the match, do you, ma’am?’

  The Dowager’s defences began to crumble. ‘It is not as if he is obliged to marry anyone!’ she said pettishly.

  ‘Oh, his affections are not engaged, then?’

  Greatly though her ladyship longed to have a heart-to-heart talk with someone concerning Lysander’s affairs, a belated flicker of caution restrained her from confiding too readily. She said vaguely. ‘Nothing is at all settled, you understand. Now here is something of more positive interest.’ She picked up a letter from the table beside her. ‘My old friend, Mrs. Goddard, has invited me—us both, for I warned her you could well be with me—to visit her in Brighton for a few days. While we two bosom-bows are gossiping, you can drive about and see the country—for England must be quite strange to you, I should suppose. A breath of sea air will be just the thing for you.’

  Miss Honeywell forbore to remind her godmother that she had recently endured rather a lengthy spell of sea air, and gave every appearance of being perfectly agreeable to fall in with her ladyship’s proposals.

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

  The Dowager, fired by optimism and the first real touch of spring, lost no time in putting her arrangements into effect. Miss Honeywell’s maid scarce had time to unpack her mistress’s trunks and shake out her gowns before certain of them had to be re-packed for the visit to Brighton. During these two days Mr. Derwent absented himself from Charles Street, but out of politeness to his mama and her guest, he put in an appearance at the dinner-table on the evening prior to their departure.

  As he handed Miss Honeywell to her chair, he had to allow that she looked delightfully in a mist-grey crape dress with tiny puff sleeves, and necklace and bracelets of red cornelian, while draped about her shoulders was an exquisite French silk shawl which reflected the colours of her dress and ornaments in its deep-flowered borders.

  He found it oddly difficult to take his eyes off her, but was recalled to a sense of what was proper by the Dowager remarking that, after their return from Brighton, she was planning to give a little dinner-party.

  ‘Nothing too formal,’ she explained, ‘just a small affair to introduce dear Kate to some young people of her own age. I had thought of including Lady Sophia and Lord Francis Trennick among our guests. I do feel we owe him the courtesy for his good offices to you after that dreadful Incident.’

  ‘I understand Lady Sophia to be at Mount Trennick.’ Mr. Derwent seated himself in such a position as to ensure that the Meissen chinoiserie sweetmeat stand that dominated the centre of the table blocked his view of Miss Honeywell.

  The Dowager refused to be discouraged. ‘Mount Trennick is no great distance from Brighton after all,’ she declared. ‘I could send a card there—that is, if you approve of the notion, Lysander.’

  ‘My dear mama, you are at liberty to invite whom you will to your dinner-table,’ he replied impatiently.

  His less than cordial reception of her project penetrated even her ladyship’s blissful unawareness, and Miss Honeywell quickly stepped into the breach to admire the display of spring flowers arranged in a handsome bowl of Ridgway china set upon a tall stand, and to compare their delicacy with the flora of the Cape. This subject lasted out until the second course was brought in, by which time the Dowager had forgotten her momentary unease and was enquiring of her son if he thought she ought to accept Lady Ansell’s offer of her house on the Steyne at Brighton for the month of June.

  ‘I can look it over when we go to visit Mrs. Goddard,’ she told him. ‘I understand it is excessively well-appointed, and the situation could not be bettered.’

  ‘I cannot agree with you there, mama. I should have thought in your circumstances a more discreet situation is to be recommended.’

  Mr. Derwent was helping himself to spit-roasted ham with Madeira sauce as he spoke, so did not observe Miss Honeywell peeping at him round the figure of a Chinese fisherman depending from the sweetmeat stand.

  ‘Is not the Steyne a discreet neighbourhood then, sir?’ she enquired, all innocence.

  ‘It is one of the fashionable lounges of Brighton,’ he said crushingly. ‘You would be subject to constant surveillance by every buck and dandy in the town. Why not a house at Tunbridge Wells or Bath? I should have thought either of those watering-places more to your taste, mama.’

  When the ladies had withdrawn to the saloon, Miss Honeywell remarked that it was fortunate they had Mr. Derwent to watch over them and tell them how to go on.

  ‘Lysander!’ Her ladyship sniffed. ‘He’s become as straitlaced as an old maid! The Steyne an improper place to lodge—what nonsense! I have a mind to inform Matilda Ansell that it will give me much pleasure to take her house!’ The entry of Mr. Derwent put a stop to this spurt of rebellion on the part of the Dowager, and a few minutes later Mr. Dacres was announced. That young gentleman had called to induce his friend to accompany him to the Daffy Club, but the moment his eyes fell upon Miss Honeywell all such notions left his head. When the Dowager tentatively suggested a rubber of whist Mr. Dacres, to Lysander’s horror, snatched at the idea as a drowning man will at a straw. Nor did the insinuation that Miss Honeywell might not play whist deter him in the least, he going to the length of declaring himself to be all readiness to instruct her should it be necessary.

  It soon became apparent that she was in no need of instruction. Mr. Derwent, who considered himself a very sound exponent of the game, did his best to counterbalance his mama’s predictable exuberance, while viewing with pained disgust his bemused friend’s erratic performance. Nonetheless, when tea was brought in at ten o’clock and the Dowager regretfully decided that, owing to their early start for Brighton in the morning, there must be an end to the game, he felt obliged to compliment the young lady on her skill.

  ‘Well, of course, there was not a great deal to do at home in the evenings except play cards,’ she explained with becoming modesty. ‘Papa did not care for it overmuch, but our estate manager and his wife were always happy to make up a table of whist or a pool of quadrille. If they failed us, mama and I played picquet together for hours.’

  Mr. Derwent, who considered picquet to be peculiarly his game, thought he saw an opportunity to give this self-assured young female a good set-down.

  ‘We must try a hand or two when you return from Brighton,’ he said smoothly. ‘I collect you were taught the game by your mother?’

  She glanced over to where the Dowager was claiming Mr. Dacres’ attention by instructing him in—of all unlikely things—how to increase the growth of hair upon the head by the application of hartshorn, beat small, and mixed with oil.

  Mr. Derwent, surprised not to receive an answer to his question, was about to comment lightly that he hardly thought Mr. Dacres to be in need of such a prescription, when Miss Honeywell directed her attention back to him and said very deliberately: ‘I was taught to play picquet by my cousin Bredon.’

  Though taken aback by this frank admission, he was quick to turn it to advantage. ‘I must advise you, ma’am, not to mention your relationship to Lord Bredon in public. He is, to put it kindly, persona non grata in the circles to which my mother will
introduce you.’

  She looked at him searchingly. ‘Do you believe him guilty of murder?’

  ‘What I believe is of no importance,’ he replied in a low voice. ‘The world regards him as guilty, and will do so until he returns to stand his trial and prove his innocence. My counsel to you is to keep out of his affairs.’

  She said nothing, because there was nothing she could profitably say at that moment. Then the two gentlemen left to seek further entertainment, Mr. Dacres protesting that if they lingered too long at Brighton they would find him upon their doorstep. The ladies repaired to their bedchambers, the Dowager to fall asleep on the instant but Miss Honeywell to lie long awake, her thoughts much occupied with a certain gentleman and how best to put him in his place.

  The journey to Brighton was a protracted one, her ladyship protesting that she employed no fifteen-mile-an-hour tits, nor would John Coachman be capable of handling them did she do so.

  ‘Lysander does the distance regularly in less than five hours,’ she told Miss Honeywell as they jogged along peacefully in her comfortable chaise, ‘but I like to make a day of it and get out to walk about at every stop. I do so hope you are not going to be dreadfully bored, dear Kate. There will be no one in Brighton just now, and Mrs. Goddard lives very retired. We cannot expect more than an odd evening at cards or a concert for our entertainment, though I daresay she could procure a pass for you to visit the Royal Pavilion, that is quite something, I can tell you.’

  Miss Honeywell assured her that, as she was much in the habit of having to make her own amusement, it was not likely that-she would be bored with so much new for her to see. Their hostess greeted them with every appearance of delight and at once informed her young guest that she was placing her stanhope and groom entirely at her disposal.

  ‘Toby is a local man and knows every inch of the country, so he is well qualified to drive you about,’ she said, peering up at Kate with the intentness of the short-sighted. ‘My, what a taking young woman you are! But you have no need to worry, Toby has been in my service for close on forty years, he’ll not run off with you!’