Chapter Twenty #2
“Manderbey!” the dowager said. “Where were you last evening and why did St. John run away from the masque and why did all those Nicolet girls and the duke chase after him? I demand to know what’s happened.”
“You demand? Very well, if you are so insistent, though I think you will regret knowing it,” he said.
“Your favorite grandnephew drugged me to keep me away from the masque, I was entirely incapacitated. He had the idea he would go to Lady Darlington’s house and somehow convince Lady Winsome to wed him and set off for Brazil, though never was there a more preposterous idea.
The Nicolets came to the rescue and installed me in the duke’s house, availing me of their physician’s services. ”
“I bet they’d liked to have you trapped there. The duke made it known he did not favor a match between Lady Winsome and St. John, though it is foolish in my view.”
“I see. You have managed to entirely ignore the part where St. John meant to do me harm.”
The dowager shrugged. “Was it really harm if he stopped you from taking an unwise step? His methods might be untoward but the end result…”
“The end result has been that I have engaged myself to Lady Winsome Nicolet. I leaned out a window and proposed to her, she accepted, and I gained the duke’s sanction.
I will go with the duke for a special license this very afternoon.
St. John is the author of this rumor about Lady Winsome, which was so ridiculous on its face that nobody with sense could believe it.
The idiot has since left Town, lest he be forced to face his villainy and lose the ambassadorship. ”
“Left Town?” the dowager asked.
He could practically see the wheels turning in her mind, looking for a way to salvage the situation.
She would not get it, though. “The end result, Madam, is if you carry on as you have done, I will ship you home to the dower house you are meant to be living in, you can be bossed about by my mother, and I imagine she will be very happy to oblige. Oh, and do not bother with any absurd threats. I will not care if you do throw yourself on the road and shout that you are being abandoned to starve.”
“That was dramatic,” the dowager said, staggering back and collapsing in a chair. “Well now, if the rumor really is not true, I suppose we can face it down. Yes, I suppose we can.”
Leland could see very well that the dowager understood when it was time to make a retreat. He meant for her to make a very full retreat.
“We will dine at the duke’s house this evening. You will be delighted over the engagement. Further, you will never, ever, for one moment, cause Lady Winsome a minute’s distress. Understood?”
The dowager barely concealed rolling her eyes. “What sort of person do you take me for? Why should I cause anybody distress?”
Why indeed. “Furthermore, you shall stay here, in Town, until you receive word to come to Torquay. The duke and Lady Valor will accompany you there. This evening, we leave for the duke’s house at half past seven.
Be prepared to be on your best behavior.
” With that, Leland left his grandmother to contemplate her future.
His own future was assured and his grandmother could do what she liked about hers.
Considering how intolerable she would find it to be in the dower house in Sussex while the current duchess reigned supreme in the main house, he thought there was a very good chance she would cease causing him trouble.
She was a rather fine old dowager when she was not causing trouble.
*
The dinner that evening at the Duke of Pelham’s house was jolly, though there were perhaps two people at table who had to put a good face on it.
Valor chose her own particular route. She pointed out her gracious and charitable nature in agreeing to come to Torquay on account of an old person’s feelings.
The dowager had taken a moment to understand that she was the old person in question.
She did not make a fuss about it, though.
She had examined her various futures and determined she could on no account live on a property where her daughter-in-law took precedence.
Torquay it must be and she had no choice but to fall in line.
It would be far easier to stop harassing her grandson than it would be to put up with her daughter-in-law marching around the estate as the new duchess.
Of course, Valor had not entirely given up her earlier strong opinions and made some dark hints about what she’d seen that morning.
She stared accusingly at her sister’s husbands as if they too were guilty of harboring the same terrible secret, though she did not specify what it was.
Those husbands were left to wonder what in the world she had witnessed.
They all had a feeling of guilt for somehow having the same secret, though they could not pinpoint what it might be.
Afterward, Fact or Fib was trotted out, and Lord Manderbey was pressed to reveal how he’d made his proposal. The party found themselves surprised that it had been done out a window, not least of all the duke.
The evening came and went and the days came and went.
Manderbey always arrived right after breakfast and they decided what to do, mostly based on the weather.
If it were fine, they might take their horses to the park.
Manderbey got his first look at what a Dales pony could really do on these galloping excursions.
It was lucky that the grooms that followed them were the duke’s and rode Dales ponies themselves, as Leland did not know how any other grooms would have kept up.
If it rained, they might set off for Lackington & Allen or shopping for wedding clothes, though Manderbey found himself out of his usual milieu in the shops. The haberdasher would find him a chair near the door and he would wait until everything in the shop had been examined and taken or rejected.
He had often marveled at how quickly rumors and gossip spread over London like a settling fog.
Now he understood it was not just passed from drawing room to drawing room and club to club.
The shops were a hotbed of news. He began to become attuned to when something of note might be said.
It seemed always to begin with “One hears the most frightful things, I can hardly bear to repeat them…though,” or “I do not like to trade in gossip…however,” or “Far be it for me to pass on a story…but.”
Manderbey kept a sharp ear out for anything around the rumor of Lady Winsome being compromised at Sir Jonathan’s scavenger hunt, but it seemed the engagement of Landry to Lady Edith and his own engagement to Lady Winsome had now made that story too improbable to repeat.
During these shopping excursions, they did not forget about Lady Valor.
Winsome bought her no end of ribbons and bits and bobs.
At a visit to Rundell & Bridge, Manderbey purchased an elegant emerald ring for Winsome and a pearl ring surrounded by chip diamonds for Valor.
She’d not known what to make if it, but Manderbey claimed it was a tradition in his family to make a gift to the youngest in the wedding party.
Valor considered it, and then she claimed that since it was a tradition, she must be charitable and gracious and accept it. It had not left her finger since.
When they were not out and about on the town, Winsome and Manderbey made good use of the quiet corners to be found in the Grosvenor Square house. There was a particular nook in the far back of her father’s library that might have blushed if it could have done so.
The day of the wedding finally arrived. Manderbey had been as good as his word and wrangled with St. George’s to get an early day.
Winsome did not know how he’d done it, as that church was always booked months in advance, but she’d begun to see that her fiancé was a very enterprising sort of gentleman.
For his part, perhaps an exceedingly generous donation had smoothed the way forward.
After all, now that he’d cut off his relations who were squandering funds at a card table, he had plenty to spare.
Leland’s father and mother, the Duke and Duchess of Albany had been sent the news of the engagement on the day it was settled.
They were happy to receive the announcement.
They had not taken the tack of his grandmother and launched endless complaints about his bachelor status, but they had begun to think it was high time he found a wife.
He’d found a duke’s daughter and they were well-pleased, as nothing more could have been asked for.
Much to the dowager’s disappointment, they were easily able to make arrangements for the trip.
Leland’s grandmother held a real fondness for his father and was delighted to see her son after an extended parting. Her feelings over encountering the current duchess were another matter. She had always found the lady to lack the deference to herself that she felt she deserved.
The battle of polite but cutting words had gone on for years between them, but now the balance of power had shifted.
The current duchess had put up with the dowager reigning over her little kingdom for years, but the mantle had been passed.
She would now take her revenge in the most dignified manner possible.
This revenge wholly consisted of statements like, “Dear Dowager, do you remember the dreary looks of the main salon? I am very glad to tell you it is all gone—drapes, carpets, furniture, all of it straight into the attics. New and more tasteful furnishings have been brought in.”
The dowager would strike back with something like, “My dear, I can hardly claim surprise. We all fondly remember your penchant for doggedly following a fashion, regardless of its sense. Goodness, I can hardly get out of my mind those green-brocade-covered shoes you were so fond of. I believe they even managed to startle the queen at one moment.”