Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Gunter’s Ice Cream Parlour
No wonder the boy was saying he liked London, thought Jacob as he held the door open for Dora.
Luck was with them. He pulled out a chair at a prime table in the window and Dora settled herself opposite his.
The confectioner’s was busy with the people spoiling their dinner with a late afternoon indulgence.
It was a glitter of mirrors and silverware, cakes and jellies displayed on pedestals with gem-like vibrancy.
He thought whimsically that it was somewhat like being inside the vault in the Tower of London where the Crown Jewels were displayed and discovering that they were edible.
It was an image with which a cartoonist could have a great deal of fun, considering the Prince Regent’s famous girth.
‘Signorina Fitz-Pennington,’ said the waiter with a welcoming smile as he trotted over with admirable efficiency. ‘The usual?’
‘Yes, thank you.’ They both looked expectantly at Jacob.
‘What’s the lady’s usual?’ he asked with a raised brow.
‘Burnt almond ice cream,’ the waiter responded promptly.
‘Hmm, interesting.’ Jacob was tempted by the sound of that.
‘If you order something different, then we can go halves,’ said Dora with a gleam in her eye. He’d found her weakness and it was ice cream.
He scanned the list of offerings and picked on the most unlikely flavour just to tease her. ‘I’ll take the Parmesan cheese ice cream.’
Dora curled her lip, then thought better of it. ‘I’ve not yet found an ice I don’t like,’ she said reflectively. ‘Do your worst, sirrah.’
‘Excellent choice, sir. Might I suggest you accompany that with a small cup of Italian coffee?’ said the waiter.
‘Oh, why not?’ said Jacob.
‘I’ll have coffee too please – with cream,’ said Dora.
Orders lodged with the kitchen, Dora and Jacob had time to look around them.
The nursery-aged crowd were being ushered out by indulgent uncles and harassed maids who would have to deal with the children’s excitement when they reached home.
Several ladies were in earnest conversation, one displaying a ring, glittering evidence of a recent engagement. Then Dora stiffened.
‘What?’ he said softly.
Dora’s expressive brown eyes flicked over his shoulder then back at him.
‘Ruby at six o’clock.’ In other words, Ruby Plum, Dora’s actress friend from the Northern Players, was directly behind him.
Embarrassingly for Dora and him, Ruby had recently taken up a new role as mistress of Jacob’s eldest brother, thanks to an introduction they had inadvertently made in the Lakes.
She was also approaching her third trimester of pregnancy – the child of an indeterminate father but one his brother had offered to raise and protect.
In sum, she was a thoroughly scandalous person by most people’s estimation.
Jacob wasn’t shocked by her, but he did find her selfishness unappealing, particularly as Dora didn’t seem to mind being taken for granted. He minded for her.
‘What’s she doing?’ asked Jacob in a low voice.
‘She’s debating whether to notice us.’
‘Is she ashamed of us or does she think we are ashamed to be seen with her?’ It was a fair question. This was a place not normally frequented by Ruby’s kind of demi-mondaine, but then again, both he and Dora were hardly irreproachable members of society. ‘What do you want to do?’
‘Oh? I can do what I want, can I, and you won’t be cross?’ murmured Dora. They both knew she would do whatever she liked – it was a freedom she had earned. ‘In that case…’ She waved a hand. ‘Mrs Plum! How delightful!’
Jacob turned in time to see a swift look of wily calculation pass over Ruby’s pretty features before the lady moved to their table, a maid in tow.
‘Miss Fitz-Pennington, it’s been an age!
’ declared Ruby to all the interested ears at other tables.
In fact, it had been a matter of weeks since she’d left Jacob’s cottage in Cumberland to take up residency in Viscount Sandys’s love nest in Marylebone.
She brushed a kiss on Dora’s cheek and offered her hand to Jacob.
Jacob stood, bowed over her knuckles, and then pulled out another chair. ‘Will you join us?’
‘Only for a moment. I have errands to run. Shopping – it is so fatiguing.’ Ruby sank gracefully onto the offered seat. ‘You may wait for me in the shade, Betty,’ she said to her maid.
Betty – who could be no more than fourteen – bobbed a curtsey and went outside, her eyes wide, taking in all the details of the high life she likely had never seen before.
‘You? In Gunter’s?’ said Dora.
Ruby rubbed her bump, forget-me-not blue eyes alive with amusement.
She had the roses-and-cream complexion that was in vogue, as well as charming ebony curls frothing around her heart-shaped face – very much a fashionable beauty.
Her walking dress was of sprigged muslin with a light silk pelisse in pink – perfectly decent, but Jacob was sure Dora would tell him it was a costly garment.
His Dora had a draper’s eye for such things.
‘I know,’ Ruby said. ‘Arthur would not approve but it is his fault. He sent me a pail of ice cream as a gift, and now I cannot get enough of the heavenly stuff. It’s ambros—What’s the word I’m looking for? ’
‘Ambrosia,’ supplied Dora.
‘Ambrosia. It’s the only thing Junior appears to like.’
‘Cravings are natural for a lady in your condition,’ said Jacob smoothly, wondering at this thoughtfulness from his brother.
Actually, on second thoughts, he didn’t want to wonder about his brother’s dealings with his ladylove, not when Jacob had to face his sister-in-law, Diana, at family gatherings.
She did not deserve this disloyalty from her husband.
Ruby beamed at him. ‘Oh, I do like you, Dr Sandys.’ She cocked her head to one side. ‘I don’t suppose you can recommend a good accoucheur?’
‘I’ll send over some names,’ Jacob promised, glad she hadn’t asked him to be attendant at her lying-in. He had given up practising medicine unless it was an emergency and it would be in bad taste to attend his brother’s mistress in such an intimate procedure.
‘And they let you in here without protest?’ murmured Dora. Dora had told Jacob of the many times she and Ruby had been turned away from shops and inns for the sin of being actresses.
‘Oh, they are sweethearts – all of them,’ said Ruby gaily, waving at the watching waiters. Even grouchy Mr Gunter smiled at her from behind the counter. ‘They know people will keep coming for their exceptional ice cream even if an occasional bird of paradise alights among the sparrows.’
‘Is that what you’re calling yourself?’ Dora’s eyes glittered with laughter.
‘There are worse names, Dora, which I’m sure you know.’ Ruby turned her smiles on the waiter who was returning with their order. ‘Oh, do tell me what they ordered, Giovanni!’
‘The burnt almond and the Parmesan cheese, Signora Plum,’ said the waiter, producing them with a flourish.
Ruby pulled a comical face. ‘Good heavens, Dora, you really are extraordinary. Why not go for apricot or ginger if you must be different? Or the pistachio – at least that is a charming green colour.’
‘I see someone else is eating her way through the menu,’ said Jacob, leaning back so Giovanni could place a little cup of black coffee in front of him.
The enticing odour of perfectly brewed espresso held him in rapture for a second.
If Dora’s weakness was ice cream, his might be a decent cup of coffee.
‘Buon appetito!’ said the waiter, with a little bow.
Ruby watched them both expectantly, like a spaniel gazing at her mistress to hand her a biscuit.
‘What?’ asked Dora.
‘I’m waiting to find out if burnt almond and Parmesan are as foul as they sound.’ Dora offered her a spoon which she refused with a delicate shudder. ‘No, dear, you are my bellwether leading the flock of those of us with less adventurous tastes.’
‘I already know that burnt almond is divine so I’d better try this cheese concoction.’ Dora scraped a spoonful from the side of the pale-yellow ice. ‘Together?’ she asked Jacob.
He dug in his spoon. ‘In all things.’ He toasted her with his loaded utensil.
Ruby sighed. ‘You two are adorable.’
In unison, they both ate their sample. It was … extraordinary. Jacob had been expecting a creamy taste, but the intense flavour of the Parmesan pushed it into a more fragrant area, countering the sweetness with a salty savour. He loved it.
‘Dora?’ he asked.
She was gulping her coffee. ‘Tastes like smelly feet.’
Ruby chuckled with deep unladylike laughter, somehow surprising for someone of her petite frame.
‘More for me then,’ said Jacob.
Hesitating, Dora pushed her ice cream towards him. ‘I did promise you half.’
‘You know that I would never deny you anything you like.’ He pushed it back and their eyes met in a charged gaze that said so much about things that had nothing to do with ice cream.
‘Look at the pair of you! Turtle doves could learn a thing or two.’ Ruby smiled with a hint of cynicism.
Shaking herself out of the moment, Dora turned her attention back to Ruby. ‘How are you settling in at the house?’
Ruby wriggled with excitement. She was always at her happiest when the conversation turned to her. ‘I’m getting new paper hung in all the reception rooms – Chinese scenes.’
‘That sounds’—expensive—‘pretty,’ said Jacob.
‘I’d love to see that when it’s finished,’ said Dora.
Ruby dipped into her reticule and pulled out a calling card. ‘I’ll hold a party. My parties are going to be famous.’
Jacob had no doubt about that.
Dora reciprocated with their business card. ‘We’re just around the corner. My room is two doors down from the office, in lodgings let by a retired wigmaker.’
Ruby read the address and sniffed. ‘Dr Sandys, really? Can’t you set her up in more style than this?’
Dora glanced nervously at the nearest table, but fortunately there were two strangers talking loudly in what sounded like Russian. ‘Ruby, how many times do I have to explain that I do not rely on Dr Sandys for my living.’
‘You’re an idiot. You need me to look out for you.’ Ruby turned in a businesslike fashion to Jacob. ‘Dr Sandys, your brother stumped up in a fine fashion for me. I want for nothing. I’m swimming in silks and jewels.’
‘How lovely for you,’ he said tightly, wishing she would get the hint that neither of them welcomed these confidences.
‘I realise you are a younger son so not as plump in the pocket, but you can surely do better than a mouldy old room in a mews? Not even a view of a garden square. It will not do!’
‘I’m perfectly happy where I am,’ said Dora with a bite in her tone.
Ruby patted her hand. ‘If he’s frigging you, he should pay for it. And I know he’s frigging because I saw the proof in the Lakes.’
Unfortunately, the clientele chose that moment to lapse into one of its periodic silences and her last words were clearly audible to the nearest tables.
The engaged lady got up with a huff. ‘Well, really!’ She drew in her skirts as she passed, as if Dora and Ruby were polluting her.
‘Ruby, you are the worst!’ said Dora, not sounding too upset that her reputation had just been traduced in the heart of the ton.
Jacob couldn’t act so sanguine. His anger rose at his brother’s ladybird’s carelessness.
‘And how many times do we have to explain that Miss Fitz-Pennington is not my mistress,’ he said, not caring that his voice carried to the fascinated listeners.
‘In fact, you may congratulate us. During our recent sojourn in the Lakes with my brother the Viscount’—that should suggest all manner of respectable things—‘I asked her to be my wife.’
‘No!’ All colour drained from Ruby’s cheeks and she looked dangerously close to fainting. Jacob felt a qualm of conscience. Pregnant ladies should not be startled. ‘Dora? Is this true?’ Ruby asked.
Dora was looking at Jacob with exasperated amusement. ‘In a manner of speaking.’ She was probably remembering how he’d chosen the moment when he’d saved her from drowning in Windermere to spring his proposal upon her.
‘Therefore, you may banish any idea of impropriety you thought you witnessed. You were merely seeing my transports of delight at being accepted by the lady I love and respect above all others.’ Jacob knew he sounded like a prosy bore but he was too furious to care.
Dora frowned at him and said in an undertone: ‘I said I would think about it, remember?’
Ruby turned horrified eyes on him. ‘You aren’t joking?’
‘I’ve never been more serious in my life.’
To his displeasure, tears welled – and he didn’t think they were tears of joy.
‘But you can’t!’ Ruby wailed. For someone who so often played a part, he sensed he was seeing true emotion from her.
‘You can’t spoil it all for me! Dora!’ She turned to her friend.
‘Please, just live with him. I’ll stop disparaging his arrangements for you.
If you want to live in a shoebox, that is perfectly acceptable. But please don’t marry him!’
Dora frowned. ‘Ruby, this isn’t the place—’
Ruby seized her hand and gripped it hard. ‘Promise me!’
Jacob’s momentary guilt had given place to anger. ‘What right do you have to deny your friend her happiness?’
‘Because if you … and her … if you do that, then he’ll … you know what your brother will do!’ Crystal tears trickled down her cheek which she dabbed away with Dora’s napkin.
If Jacob married Dora, Ruby thought his brother would not continue to house Dora’s best friend as his mistress. It would be too embarrassing – too complicated. Arthur wanted to keep actresses in their place as mistresses, not as society wives.
‘Dammit, Ruby, this isn’t about you!’ hissed Dora.
Ruby rose swiftly, bumping the table with her stomach and making the cutlery rattle.
‘Isn’t it? Then think of the child.’ With a sniff worthy of a duchess, she sailed out, beckoning her maid to join her with a flourish of her lace parasol.
Jacob and Dora were left to face down the disapproval of the clients and the glee of the waiters.
Jacob’s whispered curse was Anglo-Saxon and crude. ‘That could have gone better,’ he said aloud.
Giovanni brought unbidden two little flutes of champagne and placed them on the table. ‘Per i fidanzati!’
‘Now you’ve done it,’ muttered Dora to Jacob, while smiling sweetly as the society ladies whispered behind their hands. ‘Grazie.’
Well aware he’d set the cat among the pigeons with his bold declaration, Jacob raised the glass to the onlookers. ‘Salute a tutti!’