Chapter 14 #2
Algernon studied the cards, which favored a brisk start to the game. “I cannot impose either, my lord. Bryson must do as he pleases, and we will all wish him the best.”
I was tempted to commence play—several sequences were begging to be stacked up—but Sandy arrived with a young lady in tow. I rose and bowed before introductions were required.
Algernon nodded absently and frowned at the cards until Sandy and his partner reached the table. Miss Philomel materialized as if conjured by magic—or unrelenting marital ambition. At that point, laughter erupted, and I made my escape.
My supper waltz was promised to Robin Carstairs, while Hyperia had given hers to Bryson.
Nothing would have persuaded me to give up my good-night waltz with my intended, though Hyperia and I could have shared two dances without causing much talk.
We had agreed that for the sake of intelligence gathering, we were better off dividing and conquering.
Or spying, to use Lady Clotilda’s word.
Out of habit, I inspected the surrounds, starting with the mezzanine and visually scanning from one side of the room to the other and back again.
The ballroom had grown noisy and would soon qualify as warm.
Every chandelier, sconce, and candelabra was lit; the ladies were bedecked with whatever jewels they claimed; and the golden chalk added sparkle to the very floor.
The scene took on a fairy-dusted quality that I dearly hoped Leander and Atticus had a chance to admire.
The dancers’ exertions, alas, were befouling the aroma of the pine boughs and beeswax, but the stink of sweat was to be expected when the program included dancing or fighting.
The duchess swanned to my side, a glass of pale punch in her hand.
She looked resplendent in a gown of burgundy silk, her hems whispering as she moved.
The dress was designed with a half-train that doubled as a sort of attached shawl of pink and purple paisley silk.
Her Grace had crowned her ensemble with a parure of amethysts.
“Madam, good evening. You and the baron made a handsome couple.”
“Dunsford always acquits himself well on the dance floor. I wish Clotilda would relent and marry him.” She took a sip of her punch and grimaced slightly. “Too sweet by half, too strong by half.”
The duchess had perfected the skill of looking graciously pleasant while remaining unapproachable. Wellington had a version of the same gift.
“Has Dunsford proposed to Lady Clotilda lately?” I asked.
“Not for years, but they continue to purposely annoy each other. One concludes they are far from indifferent. Oh, please not the gavotte. I thought I’d convinced Clotilda to spare us the infernal gavotte.”
The gavotte often followed the minuet. Whereas the first dance was a sliding, light-footed affair for partners, the gavotte was more of a tramping pattern performed in lines of dancers. Four steps this way, four steps that way. Four steps, two steps, clap, and twirl…
“Shall we repair to the cardroom, Your Grace? Bound to be quieter in there, and the tables weren’t all taken as of a quarter hour ago.”
“They will be taken now. Wave so they know you see them.”
“So they…?”
She nodded in the direction of the minstrels’ gallery.
Two dark heads were visible above the railing.
At first, I could not tell them apart. Both small figures wore black.
Both were half obscured by a lack of nearby lighting.
One of them waved, and I thought Atticus had breached protocol with his ebullient gesture, but then the other boy pulled the waving arm down.
Leander—the younger of the two, the less concerned with decorum or station—had waved. Atticus had discouraged him.
I lifted my chin at the boys. The duchess saluted with her glass of punch. Leander made as if to wave again, but caught himself. The boys ducked below the railing, and I envied them their aerie.
“You and Miss West spent a notable amount of time admiring the ballroom from that same gallery.” The duchess only pretended to sip her punch this time.
“We did. I am always pleased to spend time with my intended. So much so that I’ve asked Bryson to consider extending our stay here.”
Her Grace linked arms with me and gently steered me to the shadows under the minstrels’ gallery. By some fluke of the ballroom’s architecture, the space she chose also enjoyed a coolish breeze, suggesting Lady Clotilda had already ordered windows opened on the mezzanine level.
“I am not in favor of you malingering here in Hampshire, Julian. The belief belowstairs is that you lost your footing on the bridge last evening with some assistance, and nobody can explain how Atticus came to fall through thoroughly frozen ice.”
I could explain it. “Mishaps, Your Grace. No lasting harm. Bryson hasn’t been home for more than a few days here or there. He is much missed at the Keep, and this is the season when he can set aside his duties in Surrey most easily.”
“Then let him bide at the Keep until spring, but you get back to the Hall, and please take Atticus with you. You should escort Miss West back to Town as well.”
“Miss West does as she pleases, and she is keenly aware that both my tiger and I have encountered some bad luck during this visit to the Keep. She will exercise appropriate caution.”
The duchess raised her glass, wrinkled her nose, and set the drink aside.
“Julian, one must occasionally deal firmly with headstrong personalities. I married one and gave birth to seven more. Heed me on this. Miss West hasn’t set a date for your wedding.
She hasn’t seen that this outing to Hampshire has been insalubrious for you. She won’t bring herself—”
“Your Grace means well.” One never interrupted a duchess.
One also, however, did not allow one’s mama to get the bit between her teeth in a public venue.
“The headstrong personality with whom I will deal very firmly at the present moment is my own dear mother. You will cease any mention of a wedding date in my hearing or Hyperia’s.
If we wed, we will do so in our own good time.
Sermons, lectures, pointed silences, and muttered asides will avail you nothing. ”
“I do not mutter.”
“She muttered.” I had hoped to raise a smile with that bit of drollery. Instead, the duchess gathered her shawl more closely about her.
“Very well, I will sew samplers and dandle your sisters’ children on my bony old knees,” the duchess retorted, “but if and when you and Miss West do begin negotiations in earnest, Julian, you will hear her out and leave your male pride at the door. Hyperia West is a good, dear, if somewhat contrary person, and she has been your fiercest ally do you but know it.”
Her Grace for the defense was something of a surprise. “You approve of Hyperia despite the length of our engagement?”
“I am the mortal enemy of anybody who seeks to lead my children a dance or toy with their affections. Miss West would do neither willingly, but she is taking rather a long time to exchange vows with you.”
What sort of answer was that? It occurred to me that this discussion might well be overheard by the little fellows spying aloft. Better them than some trysting couple, which might have been the duchess’s strategy when she’d chosen the scene of this ambush.
“I hate the gavotte,” she said, once again keeping her voice quite low. “A recipe for megrims and dyspepsia. Thump, thump, thump and thump, thump, thump, stomp. Julian, please find me a quiet place to get off my feet, and do so discreetly.”
We were two dances into a formal occasion at which my mother was arguably the guest of honor, and she was seeking to withdraw from view.
I could have kicked myself and dunked my head in the men’s punchbowl. I’d cautioned my intended, warned my tiger, and set a watch on my damned horse, but I’d considered Her Grace above the affray.
She wasn’t above the affray. She was in the very thick of the fighting. As a tremor passed through her, and she put a hand to her middle, the duchess was looking exactly like somebody in the early throes of poisoning.