Chapter Four
Leland had been all but forced to accompany his grandmother to the palace for the queen’s drawing room.
As he did not have sisters, he’d never had cause to attend one.
Though, he’d heard tell of the preposterous gowns the ladies being presented would be forced to wear, mostly to do with the complaints over the backbreaking cost of them.
Now, they were in a reception room while the ladies who would make their curtsies and the matrons who accompanied them were elsewhere. Apparently, after each made their successful curtsy, they would be escorted here to be congratulated.
The room was filled with pacing fathers and older brothers, they all looked as if they’d sent their young lady off to a campaign of war.
“Why are they all so nervous looking?” he asked the dowager. “What could possibly go wrong?”
“The girl could fall, that’s what. She’s got to curtsy very low, practically to a kneel.
Then she has to back out. As she is doing all that, she is encased in a hot air balloon of a dress.
It’s everybody’s nightmare, a girl would never live it down.
I expect the queen insists on that ridiculous court dress for the excitement of it. Will she or will she not fall over.”
He nodded. The whole thing sounded ghastly.
“Come, take me to a sideboard,” the dowager said. “I expect the palace has come up with something worth having. Then, we’ll stand there with a good view of the doors and you can see who comes through it that you like. Ignore what they’re wearing!”
Leland held out his arm. He had no intention of following his grandmother’s directives, but a glass of claret might go some way toward smoothing this experience.
In any case, the whole point of why he’d come was to keep an eye on the dowager and ensure she did not commit him to a wedding of her choosing.
And, if he were to be entirely honest, he understood that Lady Winsome would be presented.
As they approached the sideboard, Leland spotted Lord Landry. He’d not seen the fellow in an age, as he did not ever come to Town. What in the world was he doing in the palace for the queen’s drawing room? He had no sister to be presented.
“Landry,” he said, as the dowager plowed ahead to the sideboard. “What brings you here?”
Landry, who looked very downcast, said, “Forced to come. Family’s idea. My cousin, Lady Lisbeth, is doing her curtsy.”
“Oh I see,” Leland said, though he really did not. He had several cousins who had made their curtsy and he’d never been dragged here for it. “I’m here only to keep a tight rein on my grandmother.”
Very suddenly, Landry grabbed his coat sleeve. “I’m supposed to be introduced to ladies. They want to get me married! Ganged up on me about it. The family.”
“Ah,” Leland said, “well, certainly, it might be thought to be the right time?”
“That’s what they say. But women, Manderbey, do not you find them…a little bit frightening? With all their…ways?”
“Um perhaps only my dowager,” Leland said, not entirely sure what Landry was getting at.
The Lord Chamberlain had flung open the doors and the first lady to get through her curtsy was announced. There would be a regular stream from now on, Leland supposed.
The dowager approached with a piece of cheese in one hand and a glass of Canary in the other. Leland stared at the cheese. “Good God, did they not offer a plate and linen?”
“Can’t be bothered with it,” the dowager said. “Who’s going to scold an old and infirm lady over it? I’ll claim I’m senile if they do.”
“I see. Dowager, I believe you have met Lord Landry, a viscount from the next county over.”
“I remember. What’s brought you here?”
Lord Landry looked a bit panicked over the question and Leland supposed he was attempting to decide if he should point to his cousin being presented or that the family wanted to marry him off.
The Lord Chamberlain announced, “Lady Winsome Nicolet, daughter of the Duke of Pelham, accompanied by the Countess of Marchfield.”
Leland turned. There she was. From the bodice up, she was spectacular.
Not even the absurd ostrich feathers could take away from her piles of blonde waves and the copper strands running through it, picking up the light.
She was in high color, her cheeks suffused pink and her pretty blue eyes sparkling.
Of course, below the bodice the dress was absolutely preposterous. Leland began to think that if too many more ladies thusly attired entered the reception room, there would not be much space to maneuver through it.
Her father, the duke, collected her and they were heads together. Then he nodded and led her to the sideboard. Oddly, Lady Marchfield had not come very far inside the doors and now she turned around and walked out, much to the Lord Chamberlain’s surprise.
Leland had not been paying the least attention to the conversation between the dowager and Landry. Now, he walked off without so much as a by your leave.
“Your Grace, Lady Winsome,” he said, as the duke poured his daughter a glass of champagne.
“Lord Manderbey,” Lady Winsome said. “I pray you do not expect a curtsy while I’m in this dress. One was all I can manage.”
“Manderbey,” the duke said jovially. “Last saw you at my daughter Verity’s wedding. What brings you here?”
“No particular reason, I’m afraid,” Leland said. “My dowager insisted on coming and insisted I attend her.”
The duke’s eyes scanned the room. “Hah! The Duchess of Ralston. She was a corker in her younger years.”
“She still is, I regret to report.”
“Ah, look there Winny, the dowager talks to Landry.” To Leland, he said, “We met him on the road, at an inn. He dined with us.”
“Oh I see,” Leland said. Landry had said nothing about that.
Of course, he did not suppose there would have been reason to mention it.
Though, Leland found he did not particularly like the idea of dining together in an inn.
Those places were so much more relaxed in their standards.
Anything might go on at an inn. Had Lady Winsome and Landry sat next to each other? How close?
He stopped his thoughts from the very stupid gymnastics they were just now engaged in.
“There was only one dining room,” Lady Winsome said. “Lord Landry had feared he would be left to dine with, what did he say, Papa?”
“The hoi polloi,” the duke said with a snort. “Never saw a man so hysterical over such a thing.”
That did sound like Landry and Leland found himself very satisfied with it. He was perhaps less satisfied that the dowager was barreling toward him just now. Please God stop her from saying anything embarrassing.
“Duke, I have not seen you in an age,” the dowager said. “Not since you set Lady Vanderwake’s curtains afire. Goodness, those were jolly times.”
“Duchess,” the duke said. “I’ve since set Lady Jellerbey’s curtains on fire too, sorry you missed it.”
“The same old rascal, I see.”
“May I present Lady Winsome, one of my far-too-numerous daughters.”
“Do not curtsy, Lady Winsome,” the dowager said. “I should not wish to cause a fall-over.”
“That is very kind, Your Grace.”
“Well now, as we have not encountered each other in years, I suppose I ought to host a dinner,” the duke said. “Bring Manderbey along with you. How is Thursday?”
“We would be delighted,” the dowager said.
Leland was surprised nobody had bothered to inquire into his calendar. But he was not sorry over the idea that there would be a dinner.
“Now what about Almack’s?” the dowager asked the duke. “I intend to drag my grandson to that bastion of boredom.”
The duke laughed. “We will attend. Here is a hint—I bring a flask of brandy, it makes the boredom less boring.”
“Hah! I might do just the same. I’ll bring a flask of Canary. Let them try to stop me!”
“That’s the spirit,” the duke said.
“Now, Duke, I do not suppose you will mind if my grandson lends an arm to Lady Winsome. She must wish to take a turn round the room after her ordeal and will need support in that ludicrous get-up she’s been forced into.”
“I do not mind it,” the duke said.
The duke and the dowager both stared at Leland. The two of them were outrageous. “Lady Winsome,” he said, putting out his arm.
She laid her hand gently on his arm. He said, “There is not much room to actually take a turn.”
“In this dress, I think you mean?”
“Yes. Perhaps we might shoot for getting through to the windows and admiring the view.”
Lady Winsome nodded. “I am a regular sailing ship leaving a harbor.”
He laughed at the unexpected description. She really had a particular wit about her.
After they were out of earshot of the duke and the dowager, he said, “I will apologize for my dowager’s various outrages, both now and in future.”
“Is she rather dependable on that front?”
“As regular as a well-maintained clock.”
“Some people find my father outrageous,” Lady Winsome said.
“Yes, I understand some do. Was your dinner at the inn with Lord Landry pleasant?” It was a stupid thing to ask, and apropos of nothing, but he really did wish to know it. Landry was a regular drooping daisy of a fellow, but there was no accounting for what a woman might approve of.
“Pleasant enough,” Lady Winsome said. She paused, then said, “Lord Landry mentioned you. He said he’d known you for a long time and…you complained a lot over being dunned for money.”
“Did he?”
“Yes, I do not know why he should have mentioned it.”
“Nor I,” Leland said. Why on earth should Landry have spoken of his irritation over relatives coming out of the woodwork, looking for money? He probably had one of his nervous attacks, which generally sent him into a babble.
“It is just that, my father is never dunned,” Lady Winsome said.
Leland laughed. “Nobody gets themselves in deep with cards, then?”
Lady Winsome’s eyes widened. “It’s cards, is it?”
“Usually,” he said. She seemed surprised. He supposed the duke did not have the sort of needy and foolhardy relations that he had.
“Oh I see,” she said pensively.