Chapter Two
Mr. Feldstaffer had made the usual arrangements for a small but elegant dinner.
As this dinner had been long planned, a cartful of provisions had been brought in from Copperstone Manor by a farmer nearby Radlett who was known to be reliable about such things.
Venison, fresh-caught trout, a goose, capons, pigeons, a ham, a couple of rabbits, and a large beef roast. One of the maids who’d been left behind at the estate sent a variety of dried herbs in packets, as well as greens, leeks, parsnips, squash, and potatoes.
The dessert course would be poached pears, a savoy cake with brandied cherry cream, apple tarts, and then naturally they would offer a variety of hard and soft cheeses from the renowned Copperstone dairy.
Cook had examined it all with a careful eye and deemed it sufficient.
After consulting with that gentleman regarding the dishes he planned to prepare, Mr. Feldstaffer had spent an hour in the wine cellar.
He’d tagged the Portuguese Buccellus, a German hock, a Tokay, champagne, the earl’s best claret and port, and the estate’s ratafia, which was a close-held recipe. The footmen would bring it all up.
He did not have high hopes for any romance to spring up at table, but at least everyone would eat well.
Mr. Feldstaffer, being a butler with his fingers firmly on the pulse of London, was well aware of what Lord Chester was, though he’d never seen him.
He presumed he had not encountered him in person because he did not spend any time on the dark walk at Vauxhall or in a gambling hell or backstage at a theater.
Now he’d answered the door. Now he saw him.
There could be no doubt of his success as a rake, he looked every bit the part.
He was dashing in an almost too pretty way, his skin pale and contrasting with his dark hair and his pronounced cheekbones.
His expression was one of conferring favor by his presence.
Mr. Feldstaffer swallowed a sigh. Lady Beatrix was bound to be bowled over by him.
Young ladies were generally silly in the face of a self-assured gentleman.
The viscount and viscountess were usual-looking middle-aged people.
The dowager, though, she might be something else.
She swam in black bombazine though her lord had left the world twenty years ago.
One might have taken her for a little old lady who wore the black in honor of her husband and was content to fade to the background of life.
Her eyes gave her away, though. They were sharp and bright like a crow’s when it was interested in something.
Of all of them, she probably understood what her grandson was.
He wondered if she were embarrassed by him.
He’d led the lord and his accompanying family into the drawing room and announced them. There was the usual rush of introductions. Lady Beatrix blushed to the tops of her ears. Lord Chester looked slightly bored. All very expected.
Once every person was known to every other person, Mr. Feldstaffer cleared his throat and said, “My lord, whenever you are ready to go through.”
As it was a small party, none of the leaves had been added to the table. The dowager was to the earl’s right and the viscount was to the countesses’ right. Lady Beatrix was sat next to Lord Chester, while Lady Caroline was across the table with the viscountess.
The footman brought the decanters around and poured the Copperstone ratafia that had been developing in a pantry for weeks into cordial glasses.
The ratafia had been made with their own Tartarian cherries and had been carefully brought to London under copious wraps of burlap.
Mr. Feldstaffer had not known if the jostling of the carriage would have any ill effects, but he’d sampled a glass, and it was quite good.
“Viscountess,” the countess said, “how we have waited through the years for this coming together of our families.”
“Indeed, Countess,” the viscountess said. “I wonder, Lady Beatrix, do you recall your first meeting with my son, all those years ago?”
Mr. Feldstaffer turned toward the sideboard to hide his embarrassment for them all. This was to be a farcical play.
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Beatrix had almost fallen over when Lord Chester entered the drawing room. He was very urbane looking. Caroline elbowed her so she thought her impression must be right. It rather made her nervous and she’d whipped out her quizzing glass in some sort of gambit to appear equally urbane.
They’d gone into the dining room and she was seated right next to him. He smelled strongly of orange blossom, and she wondered if that was the fashion. Her father generally smelled of the stables or nothing at all.
Beatrix had not been expecting to be asked if she remembered Lord Chester.
She’d wondered over the years if she did, but as it happened, she did not.
She had imagined him as having fair hair when in fact he was darkhaired.
She was not certain whether the truth should be said, though, as the viscountess was leaning forward in eagerness to hear her impressions.
“Goodness,” she said, “I think I might have some sort of clouded memory.” It was a vague answer and the best she could think of.
“Lord Chester,” the countess asked. “Now you must answer the same. Do you recall meeting my Beatrix when you were both in the leading strings?”
“I do not,” Lord Chester said.
Beatrix felt herself blush. Of course he did not. Neither did she. She should have just told the truth. She had imagined a fair-haired boy. She felt embarrassed. And also, a little insulted. He could have just invented something.
“I do not believe a child that age retains any memories,” Lord Chester added.
Did he accuse her of lying? She had been lying, but she would not expect a gentleman to accuse her of it.
Miss Sprite had always said the best thing about a gentleman was that he must always act as a gentleman and never cross a lady if it could be avoided.
Even if she was wrong. The only time a respectable gentleman could cross his wife was if it had to do with milliner’s bills.
“So you’re an intellectual now?” the dowager said, staring at her grandson. “Or maybe it’s a man of science. I do not know who looks into such things as the memory of a child.”
Beatrix thought Lord Chester was annoyed by his grandmother’s teasing, as she perceived his lips tightening into a thin line.
“I read it somewhere,” he said.
“So you’re a reader now?” the dowager said. “That’s a new development.”
Gracious, perhaps this was more than teasing. Lord Chester’s grandmother did not seem overfond of him.
“What matters now,” the viscountess said, “is that here we are, together at last.”
Beatrix could practically hear the frown in the viscountesses’ tone as she said it.
She drank her ratafia. This was not at all what she’d been expecting.
Lord Chester struck her as hard to please.
Of course, she should have expected it. He was a seasoned lord.
Lady Mellon had warned her of their nature.
It was just that Lord Harrelston had thrown her off the idea because he’d been so jolly when they’d had that chance meeting on Bond Street.
What was she to do? She did not wish to disappoint her mother. The countess had been talking of the match all of Beatrix’s life. She did not know if Lord Chester liked her and was only a serious sort of person, or whether he did not. What could she do to make him like her?
She supposed he was interested in the sort of sophisticated ladies that could be found in Town. Lady Mellon said they had careless confidence and a sharp wit.
Beatrix did not think she had either of those things. She did wonder, though, if those things could be pretended at.
“Lady Beatrix,” Lord Charles said, “what do you do in your spare time?”
Spare time? She was a lady who as yet did not have her own household to run. Her whole day was spare time. What was the most sophisticated thing she did in her spare time? “I read a great deal, Lord Chester.”
“What sort of books do you favor?” he asked.
What did she read? Mostly Fordyce’s Sermons on account t of Miss Sprite’s preference for him. That would not do thought. She needed to make the most of the question.
She searched her mind for something that sounded sophisticated.
Beatrix understood that gothic novels were all the rage just now, but she was not allowed to read them.
Beatrix had not read anything sophisticated, as her mother and Miss Sprite were the gatekeepers to the castle of reading.
She was not allowed to enter her father’s library without Miss Sprite overseeing the operation and they generally came out with a dry tome.
She could tell just by looking at him that Lord Chester would not be interested in The Complete History of British Kings and Queens or Mr. Fordyce’s sermons.
Then she recalled overhearing Lady Mellon’s footmen discussing a book that sounded new and sophisticated. At least, they said so and it was the only instance she could recall of somebody naming a book sophisticated.
As Beatrix had waited in Lady Mellon’s drawing room one day, months ago, her footmen had been just outside the doors.
They’d talked about receiving the book from the steward, and how everybody wished to read it, but how it must be kept away from the housekeeper’s view as that lady was not very sophisticated.
It sounded like just the thing.
She briefly raised her quizzing glass as if it assisted her in recalling the book she was searching for. She lowered it and said, “I’ve recently found Fanny Hill to be very good,” she said.
Beatrix realized very quickly that it might have been a bad choice, considering the amount of cutlery and china dropped over it. Why it was a bad choice, she had yet to discover.
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