Chapter 7 #2
Sorcha patted his hand, rose, and quit the room, feeling equal parts smug and silly. She and Bernard had put each other in a state. He was as flummoxed as she was, and even that thought pleased her inordinately.
Cousin Coraline was a particular type, and Bernard did not make the mistake of underestimating her. She was tall and pretty, in a robust, blond, matronly fashion. Her coiffure was an arrangement of looping plaits, and she wore an ensemble of a flattering pale blue also adorned with gold braids.
Annette looked like the petite schoolgirl she was beside her elegant mama.
Bernard suspected that result was calculated on Coraline’s part: Annette was not yet out.
To have appeared at a ducal function, however informal, sporting the latest fashion, poised and preening would have been to earn the ire of every matchmaker and hopeful young lady in Mayfair.
One played by the rules, and Coraline would well understand the rules of her fiefdom.
She was like a cathedral dean or a bishop.
Outside her native purlieus, she might appear supercilious or awkward, but in Mayfair’s elegant drawing rooms, her dozen shining plaits and matching gold trim were of a piece with confidence and competence.
Bernard much preferred Sorcha’s plainer ensemble, with its more severe cut and simpler piping. She stood beside him quietly, for which he sent up a quick, sincere prayer of gratitude.
“Cousin Bernard.” Coraline offered a gloved hand, over which Bernard bowed politely. “Such a pleasure to meet you at last. Her Grace has spoken so highly of you, and Chanderton has as well.”
Bernard felt Sorcha’s amusement at that sally.
Chanderton likely hadn’t spoken directly to Coraline since Yuletide—and then only pleasantries—but Coraline would have onlookers believe she was in the duke’s confidence.
At the same time, she’d communicated that ducal by-blows, even legitimate ducal by-blows, had not previously figured on her guest lists.
“You flatter me, madam,” Bernard said. “Delighted to make your acquaintance. Miss Greer, good day. You wear that shade of lilac quite well. Puts me in mind of spring at its best. Lady Barclay, might you complete the introductions?”
A tallish, pleasant-looking gentleman going a touch gray at the temples stood on Annette’s other side.
She resembled him about the eyes and mouth.
The papa, no doubt, come to complete the picture of close family ties with the titled patriarch.
Showing the colors to support his firstborn and to be commended for the display.
He’d doubtless been a handsome blade in his youth, and he was attractive still.
“No need for formalities between familial associations,” the fellow said, sticking out a hand. “Tallister Greer, Tally to friends and family, an Honorable if the hostesses are in a stickling mood.”
If Annette ever learned to beam in her father’s genial manner, she’d conquer Mayfair at the next formal ball.
“Bernard Huxley at your service. A pleasure, Mr. Greer.”
“Call me Tally. If we were still at university, I’d be Tally-ho, of course, but that epithet was fortunately lost in the sobering mists of fatherhood.
Allow me to introduce you around a bit, and if we are very clever,”—Greer leaned a few conspiratorial inches closer, and treated Bernard to a sharp whiff of rosemary shaving soap—“we can make the acquaintance of the buffet in the next quarter hour.”
Bernard had no intention of being dragged into another circuit of mangel-wurzels and matchmakers, nor would he risk informalities that might result in any references to Cousin Bernie, Bern, Huxtleberry, or the like.
“I must decline your generous offer, Greer. Lady Barclay has introduced me to the assemblage and to the magnificent buffet, and the hour advances. One has other obligations, and they do not allow one to tarry, even in such delightful company.”
“I cannot hear of you leaving so soon,” Coraline said. “Surely you can spare another few minutes at a casual family gathering?”
No. No, and no again. Bernard was well aware of what a lot of unsupervised clerks could get up to on a mild spring afternoon. Then too, he wanted to part from these people, the better to savor what had just passed between him and Sorcha.
She’d kissed him. Made a thorough job of the business, beguiled him witless, and given him much to think about.
Much—most of it wonderful. Then too, with the Coralines of the world, one began as one intended to go on. To accede to her direction—stay, trot dutifully around the room again, speak when directed—would be to set a pattern Bernard could not allow.
“I truly am sorry,” he said. “I must be getting on. My time is not always my own, but I am usually at my leisure on Sunday afternoons—an old habit and a pleasant one.” A habit such as former vicars might enjoy.
Former vicars who held a place of at least spiritual authority in most communities. “Might I call upon you then?”
Sorcha found it necessary to consult the watch pinned to her sleeve.
“We must have Cousin Bernard to supper on Sunday, Coraline,” Greer said.
“Fatted calf, all the trimmings. Sorcha dearest, you must come as well and bring the children. A true family gathering, and I will have some masculine reinforcements about the table, as well as the beauteous company of the ladies.”
“Do come, Cousin,” Coraline said, taking up the chorus. “Mr. Greer has made an excellent suggestion, and the girls always enjoy time spent with their younger cousins.”
“I would be delighted,” Bernard said. “Lady Barclay, shall I collect you and the children on my way?”
“Why not walk with us?” Sorcha said. “We’re all of three streets from the Greers’ abode. Jordy and Bridget will be better behaved for having a little exercise. If the weather is disobliging, the coach will serve, but let’s plan on walking.”
Coraline established the time, Annette took her papa’s arm, and off they went to shepherd their daughter through the gauntlet of polite society’s inspection.
Bernard and Sorcha took a quick leave of their hostess, gathered wraps from a strikingly handsome footman, and were soon out in the relatively fresh air.
“Shall you share my coach as far as your office?” Sorcha asked.
“I ought to walk. My thoughts are in disarray, and heaven knows what havoc Ipswich and Heevers have got up to in my absence. Do you mind very much attending Sunday supper with the Greers?”
Sorcha’s coach came clip-clopping around the corner, matched chestnuts in the traces. The liveried footman hopped off the boot and set down the steps, then resumed his post a discreet dozen paces away.
“Coraline would rather I didn’t intrude,” Sorcha said. “Tally was just being polite for form’s sake. My children are younger than hers, more boisterous. She’ll want to interrogate you without me on hand to report particulars to the duchess.”
Well, botheration. “You’ll plead a headache?”
“Let me give you a ride to the office, Bernard. We’ll turn the crests, if that’s your concern.”
The crests, on the coach, which identified the vehicle as belonging to Lord Barclay’s widow. Those crests.
“If I get in that coach,” he said quietly, “I will want to pull the shades down. For no earthly reason would I want the crests turned. I would happily let all of London know that Bernard Huxley and Lady Barclay are on very comfortable terms. We can send a few pigeons to the provinces with the same news.”
Lest he carry on in a similarly bold fashion, Bernard made a production out of glancing assessingly at the sky, the grand edifices across the street, the crows strutting on the walkway.
Sorcha looked gratifyingly bashful at his declarations. Better still, she had no protests or remonstrations to offer.
“If I get into that coach,” Bernard went on, “I will hope that traffic is infernally congested and that the horses can manage only an intermittent plod in the direction of my responsibilities, and still the journey will go too quickly.”
He was doing his paltry best to flirt, and his efforts did not result in a naughty smile or a laughing departure. Sorcha’s eyes glinted as if she was close to tears.
“Get in the coach, you dratted man. Get in the coach, and I will count the hours until Sunday afternoon.”
Bernard handed Sorcha up. He followed and pulled the shades. By some gift of fate, traffic was indeed horrendously thick.
Sorcha’s kisses, by contrast, were revelations wrapped in miracles, tied up with glories too astounding for mere words, even in Latin.
“That went well,” Coraline said, arranging her skirts as she took her place on the coach’s forward-facing seat.
“Annette, you struck the perfect balance between humility to be in such august surrounds and ease among family and friends at an informal event. We must find you topics other than the weather to raise with the elders, though. They always use changing temperatures as an excuse to bring up their ailments.”
“I like the elders.” Annette fluffed her skirts in the exact same fashion as her mother. “They usually laugh at their ailments. They don’t laugh at me.”
Tallister took the backward-facing bench, though he did not care for it. He did not care for the duchess’s at homes, and he was also disinclined to like the latest family sensation, Mr. Bernard Huxley.
“Cousin Bernard was quite at ease in those same august surrounds,” Annette went on. “And he’s not a fribble. Cousin Richard used to be a fribble, but he’s put that behind him.”
Tallister’s oldest daughter still had one foot in the innocence of the schoolroom, for all that she occasionally came up with adult insights. The less said about Cousin Richard, who was actually a half-brother to Huxley, the better.
“At Huxley’s age,” Tally muttered, “playing the fribble would be quite a challenge.”