XIV
NELL DID NOT HAVE far to search. When she pushed open the door to the yellow bedchamber, she beheld her niece curled up on the French seat in the window bay, staring out at the back garden, her arms folded along the back of the seat, her chin resting upon her hands.
The gray kitten curled up in the folds of her skirt opened one eye but closed it again upon seeing Nell, and after a momentary hesitation, Rory lifted her head and looked over her shoulder.
Her expression gave little away, but there was a hint of defiance in her voice when she spoke.
“I suppose you have seen Huntley.”
Nell shut the door. “Indeed I have, and such a lecture as he read me you would scarcely believe!”
“He scolded you, Aunt Nell?” Rory sat up a little straighter.
“He certainly did. I’d no notion the man possessed such a temper.” She stepped to the window seat and sat down, peering rather anxiously at her niece. “Are you all right, my dear?”
Rory grimaced, then pulled Ulysses into her lap, stroking him gently. “I expect he told you what happened,” she muttered.
“Yes, of course he did, and I must say it was foolish of you to ride so near to the men’s bathing area, but I explained that I had forgotten to warn you against it, so he has come down out of the boughs. You’ve no need to fret any further.”
Rory looked up through her heavy lashes. “Is that why he was angry with you, ma’am? Because I don’t think he should be.”
Nell chuckled. “Good gracious, no. I took a foolish notion into my head that you had ridden to the Downs, and so I rode up thinking to meet you. Only of course you hadn’t, and so when Huntley found me I was alone, for of course he sets no store, as you know to your own cost, by a mere groom’s escort.
So he ordered poor Peter off home and gave me the devil of a trimming. ”
“Oh, Aunt Nell, I’m truly sorry!”
Nell’s eyes twinkled. “Don’t refine too much upon it, my dear. I assure you, I don’t. Very likely he was annoyed at having his bathing interrupted and merely took the opportunity we offered him to ventilate his feelings.”
Rory’s slim fingers fiddled with gray fur until Ulysses uttered a faint mew of protest, whereupon she relaxed her hands and looked at her aunt. “I hope he doesn’t ventilate such feelings often, ma’am. I, for one, don’t like to be bellowed at.”
“Dear me,” Nell said, “did he bellow?” She gave it some thought.
“He does have a sad habit of doing so from time to time. However, I am persuaded—” She bit off the words she had been about to utter, realizing there would be little profit to be gained from insisting that his lordship’s bark was a good deal worse than his bite.
Instead, she patted the girl’s hand sympathetically.
“I expect you are not accustomed to bursts of temperament from those around you. You know, my dear, the more I learn of your Lord Huntley, the less I believe him to be the man for you.”
Rory shrugged. “There is nothing to be done, however.”
“You could end the betrothal,” Nell suggested baldly. “You would scarcely be the first young woman to change her mind.”
The golden eyes widened. “Oh no, ma’am, surely you must see that I cannot.
Mama and Papa would be so disappointed. Mama, in particular,” she added with a small sigh.
For a brief moment she gazed wistfully out of the window, but she rallied quickly and managed a smile when she turned back to Nell.
“Besides, I shall quite like being a countess and having lots of money. I daresay that will make up for the rest.”
Resolutely Nell swallowed the sharp retort that sprang to the tip of her tongue, but it was clear that ending the relationship between Rory and Lord Huntley might not be so easy as she had first thought.
For one thing, she had forgotten Clarissa, who would be most unlikely to whistle a fortune the size of Huntley’s down the wind without a fight.
And Rory herself was obviously more enamored of the title and the money than Nell had first supposed.
If there were only someone else whose eligibility would match his lordship’s.
But there was not. She dismissed Major Talcott with little more than a brief thought.
Although she was perfectly certain that her niece had a strong interest in the gentleman, she had seen little indication of late that he returned that interest. And even if he did, his fortune could scarcely compare to the earl’s.
She continued to consider the matter far into the afternoon and even while she prepared for the evening ahead, but she could think of no course of action that would answer the purpose.
Huntley, arriving promptly at eight, gave her a quick, searching glance, then seemed to relax when she smiled at him.
A moment later Nell, knowing full well that he had somewhat mixed feelings about her mother’s fragile constitution, hid a grin at his visible attempt to conceal astonishment when Lady Agnes informed him that she meant to accompany them.
“Is it not courageous of her, sir?” Nell asked, quizzing him. Lips twitching, he replied that it was, indeed.
“I think it is splendid,” Rory said cheerfully as she settled herself in the carriage.
“Well, Mrs. Calvert is a particular friend of mine,” Lady Agnes explained earnestly when Huntley handed her up to sit beside her granddaughter, “and there will be a card room set up, you know, so I shan’t exert myself beyond what my constitution will bear.
I hadn’t really thought I should go, but dear Nell thought it would do me good to get out, you know, and Sir Henry concurred, so here I am.
It is good of you to lend us your escort, Huntley. ”
“The pleasure is mine, my lady,” he assured her, indulging himself in a twinkling glance at Nell as he climbed in to take his place beside her on the forward seat.
The warmth behind the twinkle sent her senses reeling again, and it didn’t help when his hand brushed inadvertently against her skirts.
Plunged suddenly into her own thoughts, Nell took little notice of the conversation as the carriage moved through the streets of Brighton.
Mrs. Calvert had cleared her drawing room for dancing and had turned her first-floor saloon into a card room.
Greeting them upon their arrival, she announced in her placid manner that a late supper would be served at eleven in the dining room.
“Agnes, my dear, we are delighted to see you. We had quite decided you would be unable to afford us the pleasure of your company.”
“What ‘us’?” Huntley inquired in a low voice as he escorted the ladies toward the drawing room. “She invests the word with nearly regal overtones.”
Only Nell heard him, and she turned laughing eyes to his.
“There is a Mr. Calvert, my lord,” she told him, her voice catching a little when she realized how closely they stood together.
“Rather a quiet, somewhat elderly man. I believe we would find him in the card room if we were to look. Oh, Mama,” she added, speaking slightly louder, “there is Sir Henry. I didn’t know he meant to be here this evening.
We should have invited him to make one of our party. ”
“Oh, he thought he might just look in, you know,” Lady Agnes replied vaguely, signaling Sir Henry, however, with her silk fan even as she spoke.
A few moments later Sir Henry had taken Lady Agnes off to the card room, and Rory’s hand had been solicited for the first dance, so Nell found herself alone once more with Huntley.
His nearness was still disturbing, and she searched her mind rapidly for a safe topic of conversation.
“Have you seen the prince, sir?” she asked at last. “Was he annoyed with you for leaving his bathing party?”
There was a brief pause as his eyes met hers, but then, seeming to shake himself, he smiled. “Prinny is in high gig,” he said, taking a seat beside her. “You know old Smoaker, of course.”
“Certainly,” she replied gamely, “though I have never met him. He is as much a legend as Martha Gunn. He’s been the prince’s dipper for years.”
“Well, he’s a crusty fellow and has a reputation for being very strict with his charges,” Huntley said, “but today he outdid himself. According to Prinny, when he went into the water this afternoon, he ventured out a bit farther than he usually does. Next thing he knew, old Smoaker was squawking at him to come back. Prinny ignored him, of course, so what does the old fellow do but dash in after him and drag him out by the ear!”
Laughter came easily, and she said, “It sounds precisely the sort of thing he would do to any other gentleman, but it is scarcely the sort of treatment the prince is accustomed to.”
“Oh, Prinny was highly diverted,” Huntley assured her. “Marlborough said at dinner that Smoaker explained himself by grumbling that he warn’t going to let the king hang him for letting the Prince of Wales drown hisself, not to please nobody!”
“You must have been sorry to miss such a scene,” Nell said, still chuckling. Then a note of contrition touched her voice. “I hope it has not made you more displeased that we should have.”
“What’s done is done and no use talking about,” he said brusquely. “Will you dance?”
Though Huntley’s mind, like her own, seemed to be elsewhere a good deal of the time, the evening passed agreeably enough.
Nell, keeping a close watch over her, thought Rory seemed distracted, too.
She smiled and even flirted, but her heart didn’t seem to be much in it.
She seemed to have her eye on the entrance, and when she casually mentioned that Huntley might take her down to supper if he’d a mind to, since no one else had asked her, Nell’s suspicions were aroused.
She said nothing, however, and the three of them went down to supper together.
Afterward Huntley volunteered to see that all was well with Lady Agnes, and Rory and Nell walked back to the drawing room.