Chapter Fourteen #2
THE GUESTS BEGAN TO ARRIVE the next day, and nearly all of Irene’s time was taken up with helping Francesca deal with them, as Gideon’s grandmother insisted on keeping to her room despite Lady Odelia’s best efforts to make her come down to greet their guests.
Lady Teresa did come down to the drawing room, but it was soon apparent that, despite her earlier haughty manner, she was ill-prepared for a party such as this.
She knew none of the arrivals, and she seemed somewhat overwhelmed at greeting a large number of blue blooded guests.
She was silent beyond a few commonplaces about the weather, and if asked a question, she quickly referred it to Francesca or Irene.
The first guest to arrive had actually been Gideon’s friend, Piers Aldenham.
As fair as Gideon was dark, he was slender and elegantly dressed, and when Horroughs, a look of disapproval writ plain upon his narrow features, ushered Piers into the drawing room, Aldenham swept a very creditable bow to the ladies of the house.
“It is an honor to meet you,” he said with a winning smile. “As well as a pleasure. I must take my friend Gideon to task. He did not prepare me for the beauty of the ladies I would meet here. I am overwhelmed.”
“Nor did he inform us of how smoothly you could talk,” Irene replied with a smile, liking his merry grin and his complete lack of self-consciousness. Here was obviously a man who felt at home wherever he was.
“No doubt I wax more eloquent around fair ladies,” he told her.
“Piers!” Gideon strode into the drawing room, smiling broadly. “Never tell me you got up early enough to make it here by this hour.”
“Gideon!” Piers turned and clapped his friend on the shoulders, shaking the hand Gideon offered him. “I can assure you that I did not. I got in too late yesterday evening to call on you. I went straight to the inn and fell into bed.”
“I shall send one of the grooms down to the inn to get your bags.”
Piers shook his head, grinning. “Nonsense. I’m quite content there. ’Tis a very good room.”
“Don’t be absurd. Of course you will stay here.”
Piers’ gaze flickered toward the women in the room. “You may have been raised without a mother and sisters, my friend, but I was not. I can tell you that a last-minute guest throws all their plans into a terrible state, and they will hate both of us for it.”
Irene saw the crease between Gideon’s brows.
She felt sure that he suspected, as she did, that his friend was staying at the inn in order to lessen Gideon’s conflict with his relatives.
It made her respect the man. However, she was also certain that Gideon would not be well-pleased with Piers doing so.
Besides, at the present time, given what he had learned, Gideon was in need of every friend he had.
“Oh, no, Mr. Aldenham, you wrong us,” Irene put in lightly. “We are more capable than that. We already have a room made up for you.” That much was true. She herself had made sure that the room was ready for Aldenham’s arrival.
Piers smiled at her, surprised. “You are kind and efficient, as well as beautiful, my lady. Still, I think it would be unpardonably rude of me.”
“It is not rude of you at all,” she rejoined. “The late notification of your arrival must be laid at Lord Radbourne’s door, so if there is any rudeness, it is entirely his, and I can assure you that we are all quite accustomed to Lord Radbourne’s rudeness.”
Piers let out a bark of laughter. “All right, then. You have convinced me, my lady. Send for my bags, Gid.”
“Of course.” Gideon glanced at Irene, and for an instant the harsh look his face had worn the past day was gone, replaced by a flash of warm gratitude.
Then his expression returned to its cool indifference, and he turned away.
“Come, Piers, I will show you about the place. If you will excuse us, ladies?”
Piers favored them all with another grin and a bow, and the two men left the room.
“Well!” Lady Odelia said. “A well set-up young man, I must say.”
“He is not quite what I had expected,” Francesca admitted. “His speech and dress would certainly pass for those of a gentleman.”
“I suspect that Lord Radbourne misled us a bit about what to expect from Mr. Aldenham,” Irene said drily. “No doubt he enjoyed watching everyone squirm over the possibilities of embarrassment.”
“Well, everyone will wonder who the man is,” Francesca said. “But at least they will not declare themselves insulted and leave in a huff.”
Irene grinned. “You may wish that he did drive off some of them before it’s all over.”
The next guest to be admitted to the drawing room was Miss Rowena Surton, a pretty doll-like blonde with blue eyes and a strawberries-and-cream complexion.
She arrived a couple of hours later and was accompanied by her brother, Percy, who had the same coloring as his sister and a pleasant, if rather vacuous, expression, and their mother, a plump, easygoing woman who, Irene thought, was probably the image of what Rowena herself would look like in twenty-five years.
Gideon, unsurprisingly, did not appear in the drawing room again, and Irene felt sure that it would be supper before any of the young women they had invited actually got to speak with him.
She did not, however, offer any explanations or excuses for his absence.
After all, the girls would have to deal with the man’s nature sooner or later; they might as well find out about his manners up front.
In the middle of the afternoon Mrs. Ferrington and her daughter Norah showed up, and, most unfortunately, Lady Salisbridge and her two daughters swept in almost on their heels.
As soon as she spotted the attractive dark-haired Mrs. Ferrington ensconced on the sofa in the drawing room chatting in a lively manner with Lady Odelia, Lady Salisbridge drew herself up to her full height and threw a furious look at Francesca.
“Lady Salisbridge. And Flora and Marian.” Francesca hastened over to them, smiling and holding out both her hands.
“How wonderful to see you again. I am sure you wish to go up to your rooms and freshen up a bit before you meet everyone. I am afraid Lady Radbourne is indisposed this afternoon, in any case. I am sure she will be here to greet you this evening, however. Irene? Why don’t you show Lady Salisbridge and the girls to their rooms?
You know Lady Irene Wyngate, do you not? ”
Irene smiled and whisked the three women out of the room before Lady Salisbridge could comment on the presence of her rival at Radbourne Park.
Diplomacy was not Irene’s strong suit, but she managed to avoid any complaints from Lady Salisbridge by keeping up a steady stream of comments about the weather and questions about their journey as she led the three women up the stairs.
Francesca had strategically placed them in rooms near the front of the house, at the greatest possible distance from the room given to Mrs. Ferrington and her daughter at the back, just as they would be seated as far apart as could be arranged every night at dinner.
As the Countess of Salisbridge was known to be a proud woman—though also always notoriously close to Dun Territory—Francesca had been careful to put her and her daughters in large and pleasant rooms close to the family.
Mrs. Ferrington, on the other hand, was a realistic sort who knew that her husband’s wealth was greater than his standing among the ton, and whose confidence was firmly embedded in her own status for the past twenty-odd years as a reigning beauty.
She would be unlikely to quibble at where she and her daughter were placed.
Irene cast quick sideways glances at Lady Salisbridge’s two daughters as she led them up the stairs.
They were similar in looks, with medium brown hair and hazel eyes, and the same long, aquiline nose as their mother.
They had, too, that woman’s habit of looking at one down the length of that nose, giving them an air of disdain for the rest of the world.
She left the three women exploring their rooms and ordering about the abigail who had accompanied them, as well as the housemaid who had been sent to help with the unpacking.
She returned to the drawing room, where she found that Mrs. Ferrington and Norah had also decided to seek the comfort of their room.
She had little chance to rest, however, for she was immediately embroiled in a crisis with the cook and after that had to soothe the ruffled feathers of the housekeeper, whom the Salisbridges’ haughty abigail had offended with her demands.
It was not long afterward that Lord Hurley and his daughter came in, windblown and in high spirits, having chosen to ride instead of being cooped up in the carriage.
The pair were as alike as a father and daughter could be, with the same hearty, pleasant manner, sandy hair and square, freckled faces.
They told a long and detailed story of their ride, including, Irene thought, every fence, hedge, stream and other hazard their horses had jumped along the way, one of them taking up wherever the other dropped off.
Listening to them, Irene suspected that Lady Hurley had probably been just as happy that the two of them had not ridden with her in the carriage.
Lady Hurley, arriving an hour later and in a more decorous state, was a small, languid woman who, after greeting Lady Odelia and the others, opted to retire to her chamber for a restorative nap.
The last guests were the Duke of Rochford and his sister, Calandra, a pretty young girl whose black hair and dark eyes were very like her brother’s, but whose lively personality was most unlike the duke’s imperturbable elegance.