Chapter Eight #2
“Good,” Charity said, and she wrapped one arm around Grace’s shoulders in that sisterly affection that Grace had come to hold so dear. “So. Lord Lockhart,” she said on a sigh. “Bit of prig, if you ask me. Stuffy. Starchy, even.”
Grace rolled her eyes. “It was only a dance!”
“And a morning call,” Charity said in a saccharine-sweet voice.
“And a dinner invitation! Next it will be only an engagement—” She laughed as Grace bumped her hip with her own in mute chastisement.
“I’m only teasing, dear. I’ll admit he’s not the sort I thought you’d prefer, but if you like him, then we shall endeavor to like him. ”
It was one of the things she loved best about her family; their generous, easy acceptance, even of those who would not have seemed to fit amongst them. But it was the oddest thing—she did like him. Just a little. More than she had expected to.
∞∞∞
The noise was incredible. Henry had rarely been close enough to the Duke of Warrington’s house to truly appreciate just how loud it really was.
Across the street had always been quite close enough for him, and even then the general volume of the sound from within the house had been… perturbing, to say the least.
Henry lifted his hand to knock, cringing as an ear-shattering screech vibrated against the windows on either side of the door. Could a knock even be heard over the din within? No matter—he had to try.
He waited for what seemed to be a break in the cacophony, then slammed his knuckles against the varnished wood of the door several times in rapid succession. A moment later, an aged gentlemen who looked as though he had never smiled in the whole of his life cracked open the door. “May I help you?”
Another shout, and the man did not even flinch.
Definitely the butler, then. Henry lifted the bouquet of flowers in his hand and said, “I’ve come to call upon Miss Seymour.
” Yet another shriek raised the fine hairs at the nape of his neck.
Was someone being murdered? The butler didn’t seem even the least bothered.
“Who may I say is calling?” the man inquired.
“Lord—” Henry winced at the shout that shredded clean through his voice.
“Lord Lock—” Another hair-raising screech.
Dear God, surely someone was being skinned within.
There was simply no other explanation. “She’s expecting me,” he gritted out, torn between slamming his hands over his ears merely to mute the egregiously loud noise, or cutting his losses and fleeing altogether.
“Children!” The shout from within quieted the din at once, and Henry felt his shoulders, which had pinched up about his ears to protect his hearing, drift down once again in relief.
Grace’s voice, thank God. “I have a caller,” she said, this time in a milder, sweeter tone.
“I’ll thank you to keep the noise to a dull roar, if you don’t mind. ”
Footsteps approached the door, and Grace’s face appeared behind the butler. “Thank you, Redding,” she said. “Lord Lockhart has already received Charity’s permission to call upon me. Would you send for tea?”
The butler opened the door to admit him, and Henry tentatively stepped within. “What in the world was that racket?” he asked.
“Ah,” Grace said. “The children were having some sort of disagreement.”
“A disagreement,” Henry echoed in patent disbelief. “It sounded like a war. Or a massacre.”
“It always does.” She pointed up, and Henry followed the gesture to the landing above the stairs, where five small faces peered down at him with varying degrees of suspicion.
“In order,” Grace said, “Mercy’s children, Flora and Sherborne; Felicity’s daughter, Lucy; Charity’s boys, Hugh and Zachary. ”
Not one of them appeared to be aged over ten. Had Eliza ever been that loud? He didn’t think so—but then, she’d spent most of the time in the nursery with her nanny, and then with her governess. Perhaps she would have had cause to be similarly unreserved had she had a clan of cousins to play with.
Grace fisted her hands upon her hips and craned her neck to peer up at her nieces and nephews. “We will be in the drawing room with the door open,” she said. “Do be kind enough to allow me a quarter of an hour of relative peace, won’t you?”
“Yes, Aunt Gracie,” one of the boys mumbled sullenly.
Gracie. The appellation suited her; familiar and sweet. But, then, Grace suited her just as well, with the effortlessly elegant swish of her lavender skirts across the marble floor and the lithe turn she performed as she headed for the drawing room.
He turned to follow along behind her, struggling to draw his gaze away from the smooth roll of her hips, the delectable curve of her arse which even the full skirts of her gown could not conceal.
A queer whistling sound split the air, and a second later something small and hard struck the back of his head and the fell to the floor with an odd plink. Henry paused to gingerly touch the stinging spot at the base of his skull. “What the devil?”
Grace snickered—and so did the band of children standing still upon the landing above. “Peashooter,” she said. “All the children got them as gifts from Uncle Chris last Christmas.”
“He gave weapons to children?” He’d already blurted out the question before he realized the absurdity of it. The man did seem to be the sort who would, after all.
“Don’t be silly,” she said as she cast open the drawing room door.
“Weapons were the Christmas prior, when every child received a clever little folding knife. Most of them were confiscated rather quickly, but not before there was some dreadful damage done to the stair banisters. So you see, the peashooters are rather tame in comparison.”
“The back of my head begs to differ. Which of the little devils do you suppose I have to thank for it?”
“Oh, almost certainly Flora. She’s got the best aim of the lot by far.
I’ve seen her shoot a bottle off of a fence post at twenty paces.
” Grace shot a speaking glance over her shoulder as she sailed into the drawing room.
“Don’t cross her,” she warned. “She has always got that peashooter near to hand, and she keeps her pockets crammed full of dried peas. I doubt you could find an infantryman better armed. Ah, here’s Redding.
” Grace settled herself upon a couch and gestured to the other side of it for him to sit.
Henry took the seat she indicated, leaving a proper swath of space open between them just as Redding arrived in the doorway, pushing a small cart which bore a tea service.
On Redding’s heels, Tansy sauntered into the room, pausing in the doorway to scent the air briefly and then lick one massive paw as if to make herself presentable for company.
As Redding carefully arranged the tea service—and plates of assorted biscuits, pastries, and tiny sandwiches—upon the table before them, a curious scraping sound came from somewhere overhead, as of a very large piece of furniture being moved.
“Surely the children weren’t responsible for that? ” he asked.
“No; though I wouldn’t put it past them.
” Grace leaned forward to pour a cup of tea as Redding retreated.
“My family has tea together at least once a week. The gentlemen usually don’t stay long before they’re off to their club—but still, so many people require a great deal of space and a great number of chairs and tables.
The servants are likely arranging furniture to suit. Sugar?”
“And milk, if you don’t mind.” Probably it should have been a relief that the house was so occupied; that there was no chance they could be accused of impropriety, even if they were not, strictly speaking, beneath constant watch. Instead it struck him with disappointment.
“You brought flowers?” she asked as she handed over the tea cup on its saucer.
“Oh. Yes.” He’d forgotten the bouquet he’d tucked beneath his arm on his way in. “I didn’t know what you preferred, but roses seemed a safe choice. And I brought a book—”
Her nose wrinkled as she accepted the bouquet, gently setting it atop the table beside the teapot. “Don’t say poetry, I beg you.”
“Of course it’s poetry. I thought it best to make a good show of it. Does poetry offend you?”
“Not in and of itself, but one does weary of hearing the same verses recited time and time again,” she said.
“Once, a gentleman attempted to pass off Byron as his own to me. Can you imagine it? Byron!” A little huff of indignation puffed across her lips.
“I suppose he thought I would not know the difference.”
The revelation that she had had other callers did not surprise him, exactly. Whatever her origins might have been, Grace was a beautiful woman, with a great number of advantageous connections to several wealthy and aristocratic families, and with an outrageous dowry, besides.
But it did spark some odd, ugly emotion behind the cage of ribs. Something that felt unpleasantly like jealousy. How many gentlemen had sat precisely where he sat now? Had she refused them, or had they refused her?
“Give it here,” Grace said, extending her hand for the book.
Before he could lay it into her hands, Tansy pounced upon the seat between them, snapped her spine into an arch, flattened her grey ears back against her head, and bared her fangs in a feral hiss.
Henry reared back, book clutched to his chest like a scandalized maiden might clutch a handkerchief. “Does she bite?”
“Yes,” Grace said. “When she feels it’s merited.” She stroked the tips of her fingers down the arch of the cat’s back. “Tansy, sweetheart. Lord Lockhart has been kind enough to allow you the use of his garden. Perhaps you could be just a bit nicer in return?”
Tansy’s eyes narrowed to slits, the exact same vibrant green of her mistress’. She uttered what Henry interpreted as a last warning growl as she slowly relaxed herself, settling in to sit between them with all the unassailable dignity of a duchess.