Chapter 6 #2
“Will you be at Her Grace’s at home?” Annette asked. “Mama says I am to appear under the ducal roof regularly from now on, and nothing against Her Grace, but everybody who calls upon her seems to be so old.”
“Those old people have sons and nephews, Annette. They will mention the young Greer daughter who comported herself with such ease and confidence. These family outings do matter, and they will give you a chance to find your bearings.”
“Mama said I am to hack out with you for the same reason.” Annette apparently intended no insult with that disclosure.
“To be seen in good company in a fashionable location. I have been bouncing around on one mare or another since well before I put up my hair, and all I’m perfecting is the ability to ignore feathers drooping incessantly on my shoulder. ”
The next instants unfolded as if Sorcha were reading them on a page, one action after another, when, in truth, reality blazed by faster than thought.
A rabbit darted across the path. Sorcha’s mare skin-jumped and settled.
The fair Cinnamon, however, having suffered long enough for the cause of fashionable public displays, got the bit between her teeth and took off across the grass.
Like most horses, she had an exquisite sense of direction and bore down hard on the leafy path that led to the park’s gates.
A gentleman arranged his lean gray gelding across the opening to the path and sat calmly while the mare approached at a fast canter.
Annette, screaming like a banshee—no profanity, thank the heavenly intercessors—had given up any attempt at control and clutched wildly at the horse’s mane, the reins flapping against the beast’s neck.
Other riders had drawn to a halt, calling directions to the runaway.
“Take up the reins, woman!”
“Pull her head to your knee, for pity’s sake.”
“Stop screeching, young lady. Silence, and she’ll slow down.”
The gentleman sat on his gray, watching with a calm eye as the mare careened closer.
Cinnamon, who seldom cantered for more than a few yards at a time, took note of the obstacle, dropped into a jarring trot, then came to a heaving halt a dozen feet from the path that would have led her to the gates.
Only then did the gentleman urge his horse close to the mare. He appropriated the reins to turn the mare in a half circle and accompanied Annette back to Sorcha’s side.
“The grooms were apparently remiss,” he said, “allowing the mare to go for an outing when she was still too fresh. Lady Barclay, perhaps you’d favor us with proper introductions?”
Annette regarded Bernard with a combination of wonder and disbelief. The groom was a good dozen yards back, doubtless trying to look invisible.
“Miss Greer,” Sorcha said, “may I make known to you Mr. Bernard Huxley, who happens to be a cousin of yours in some fashion. Mr. Huxley, I have the honor to make known to you Miss Annette Greer.”
“You’re Cousin Bernard?”
He smiled slightly. “I have that honor, and you are something of a horsewoman, Miss Greer. How on earth did you stay aboard for that protracted display of naughtiness?”
Annette sat taller, adjusted her reins to a proper length, and returned his smile. “I did, didn’t I? I stayed aboard across half the park. Auntie Sorcha, you saw me.”
What Sorcha saw was that Bernard had worked whatever magic that came of years of vicaring in rural Yorkshire. Annette’s view of herself, which might have landed in the ditch, had just improved in some critical fashion, and Bernard had done that with a few words and a small smile.
He was a gentleman to his bones, and that, more than his card tricks or self-possession or subtle humor, turned the thought in Sorcha’s mind, about Bernard’s intimate appeal, in the direction of a wish.
Perhaps even in the direction of a hope.
“Heaven, defend me,” Bernard muttered as he surveyed three dozen of Mayfair’s finest lounging about Her Grace’s vast formal parlor. Two beldames seated by the potted palms raised lorgnettes, the better to peer at him.
Sorcha took a firmer grip of his elbow. “They are here to socialize with the duchess and have a look at Annette. You are merely a passing curiosity.”
The duchess, literally cornered by a pair of what looked like German royals, did not so much as glance up. The luminaries ranged about the room studied the passing curiosity as if he were a new hyena at the royal menagerie.
He’s not one of us. Worth an inspection and a tad on the exotic side, but never one of us. Public schoolyard judgments writ large across both genders, though Bernard—with a titled grandfather—had not suffered the worst the puerile pecking order could have meted out.
Was this what a younger Sorcha had faced when she’d come to London in search of a husband?
“Lady Barclay, Mr. Bernard Huxley,” the footman-cum-herald announced. The hubbub of conversation ebbed to a whispering hum.
The duchess glanced over her shoulder, extricated herself from her captors, and came forward. “Lady Barclay, Cousin Bernard, how lovely of you to drop by. His Grace will be so pleased.”
The hubbub resumed and soon approached a roar.
“Apologies,” the duchess said quietly. “The duke was insistent that Society be given clear orders. I will never refer to you as Cousin Bernard again if it offends you, Mr. Huxley.”
She smiled warmly through the apology, and Bernard felt once again as if he were the new fellow at the vicarage, the new fellow at the office. Everybody else spoke the local dialect. Everybody else knew one another and well understood what role he was expected to fulfill.
He, himself, was clueless.
“Any polite address will do, Your Grace.” He bowed correctly over her hand. “We are not, in fact, cousins, are we?”
“Chanderton is your uncle, making me your auntie by marriage. No accounting for Mayfair marriages. Sorcha, how are the children?”
Sorcha, who still had a comfortingly firm grip on Bernard’s arm, smiled just as convincingly.
“Thank you for asking. I actually have some reason to be hopeful where Jordy’s scholarship is concerned.
He’s taken to doing sums with the sort of glee my mother exhibited on the same topic.
Bridget has begun sketching with the same enthusiasm. ”
Bridget was drawing everything she saw because her new little friend from the park was an enthusiastic artist. That some of her masterpieces were unrecognizable, and most of them had manes and tails, was no less reason to admire her efforts.
“And what of the great governess hunt?” Her Grace asked. “Any progress?”
“Why, yes,” Sorcha replied. “We’re re-interviewing the two best candidates from a dozen sent over by Swindon’s. By this time next week, we should have new talent in the nursery.”
“Delightful news. I heard about Annette’s little adventure in the park, you two. Well done, the both of you, not making a mishap into a disaster, but what are we to do with a girl who cannot ride even an aging mare?”
Marry her off, apparently. The German princesses were eyeing Bernard speculatively, as were half the older women and men chatting around the drawing room.
The ceiling was at least twelve feet above Bernard’s head, painted with a fresco involving angels, toga-clad figures, and billowing clouds that provided the occasional touch of modesty to voluptuous nymphs.
The angels and gods seemed to be watching his every move as well.
“Annette’s horsemanship will likely improve going forward,” Sorcha said. “She kept her seat, and half of Hyde Park came up to congratulate her on that feat.”
Oh right. In the alternative, they had trotted over to have a look at the curiosity on the skinny gray gelding.
“Let me introduce you to Lord and Lady Fitzcarruthers,” the duchess said. “They have holdings in York, and they will be most pleased to meet a former neighbor.”
Yorkshire being more than ten thousand square miles, of course.
Sorcha towed Bernard along. He bowed, he chatted, he missed York when it was appropriate to do so, he enjoyed Paris when that half-truth seemed called for. All the while, he was wishing himself back at the office, where Kessler had taken to muttering about his daughter’s cottage in Dorset.
And Bernard was wishing himself alone with Sorcha even more.
“We have done what’s required,” she said after the second circuit of the room. “The buffet is across the corridor if you’d like a snack before we leave.”
A snack. Well, yes. Bernard had been wishing for sustenance too. “I am famished, now that you mention it. Have I passed muster?”
“Time will tell. You spoke the King’s English. You did not leer, even when you were all but invited to do so. You merited the duchess’s best, most personable smile and her most familiar address. Mayfair cannot take you into dislike now without genuine provocation.”
“Isn’t being in trade such a provocation?”
“You are managing the Lorne family investments, according to what I overheard, and that sort of behavior is all but expected from the more obscure denizens of titled Society. The food is this way.”
The food was a feast fit for princes, if not kings.
The offerings included myriad sandwiches—no crusts, white bread—and tarts of every description.
Sliced oranges with currants, cinnamon, walnuts, and some sort of wine sauce.
Puddings, cold sliced ham, cold sliced beef, and four different cheeses.
The sweets were as varied and abundant, including chocolates that might well have been imported from France.
“Don’t,” Sorcha said, handing him a plate.
They had the gallery to themselves.
“Don’t?”
“You are thinking of every hungry child, begging soldier, and streetwalker you passed on the way here.”
“And on the way to the office. They are more numerous along that route.” Though the poor, the injured former soldiers, the orphans, and women trading their bodies for bread were ubiquitous in the metropolis.
“Her Grace sends the leftovers to a church in St. Giles, and she makes sure there are always abundant leftovers. Everything but the oranges can be eaten without utensils, and she’ll send over a crate of oranges with the peel still on, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Good to know.” A relief to know. In addition to London’s social and commercial puzzles, Town also posed moral conundrums. “Shall we fill you a plate?”
“See to yourself, and I’ll manage on my own. The punch is safe.”
Bernard selected mostly ham and cheese tarts, which had been flavored with basil and a hint of pepper. For his sweet, he took two of the chocolates. He avoided the oranges, though they looked delicious, and asked the footman to ladle him half a serving of punch.
Safe did not mean palatable, as any veteran of rural quarterly assemblies knew.
“Let’s admire His Grace’s library, shall we?” Sorcha led the way, velvet skirts swishing briskly. She’d donned an ensemble of dark green trimmed with aubergine piping and aubergine lace. The result flattered her coloring and did not in any regard resemble mourning.
The library was, above all, quiet. A rumble of conversation echoed from down the corridor, like distant cannons or thunder, but once inside the library itself, all other sounds were muted.
Tall windows flanked by blue velvet curtains, thick Axminster carpets, and furniture upholstered in deep blue brocades helped deaden sound, while light suffused the whole.
Bound books in their thousands stood along darkly gleaming mahogany shelves, and a reading table of the same wood occupied the center of the room. Above, another fresco of mythical grandeur adorned the ceiling, and gilt molding encircled the whole.
More light. More incalculable wealth.
“Are we permitted to eat in such elegant surrounds?” Bernard asked.
“His Grace regularly takes a tray here when he’s reading late at night. The chairs at the reading table are surprisingly comfortable.”
“I will feel as if Apollo and Zeus are watching me. Might we use the alcove?”
Sorcha again led the way, and Bernard found it difficult to limit his admiration to her wardrobe choices. He positively adored her stride from any perspective. She half prowled, half conquered with each step and neither hurried nor tarried en route.
“I love the light here,” Sorcha said, taking a seat in a wing chair. “Proximity to the parks means the air isn’t as sooty even in winter. I saw this room and understood Barclay a little better.”
Bernard took the second chair. The alcove was out of sight of the door and of the gods flying aloft.
“You wanted me to see this place,” he said. “The formal drawing room, the corridors with their Gainsboroughs and Lawrences, the golden molding, and gods.”
Sorcha took up a tart. “Your father was raised to think this was his due, Bernard. My husband had the same expectations. Chanderton doesn’t seem to take it all that seriously, but then, he’s the duke, not the younger son living on an allowance and investments. Eat something.”
Bernard tried the punch, which was a pleasant, cidery, spicy affair that managed to be not too awfully sweet.
“I should be at my office.”
Sorcha passed him a tart from his own plate. “You should be enjoying this excellent fare. What could possibly be so troubling at the office that it distracts you from one of the grandest homes in Mayfair?”
Bernard accepted the tart. “One of the junior clerks, Heevers…” Bernard wished they’d closed the door. “Heevers a uriné dans les bottes d'Ipswich.”
Sorcha regarded him over her tart, and he saw the moment when she’d completed the translation. Her dark brows knit, rose, and settled.
“He peed on another junior clerk’s boots?”
“In them. And the retaliation involved that evidence of canine street life referred to in the vernacular as pure.” In Heevers’s overcoat pockets.
Sorcha put down her tart, fought a visible though fleeting battle for composure, and went off into whoops.
Seeing her laugh, joy stole through Bernard.
The pleasure of having lightened Lady Barclay’s practical, careful Scottish heart was subtle and sweet, and he was soon smiling as well.
They could laugh together, and this wondrous state of affairs convinced him, as trotting in the park and card tricks and governess interviews could not, that he had finally found the woman he was meant to love.
And perhaps, given the luminous sense of mischief in Sorcha’s gaze, she could love him back, if he was very lucky, very persistent, and a little bit daring in his wooing.