Chapter 6 #3
Dante nearly snorted at the idea of Cerys Evans being delicate, but Cousin Diana had a point to drive home.
“She is much better off here. Andover is a flirt and a great one for his amusements, but you will have a quiet refuge out of the general way of things, and you will not be prey to whatever rough or tedious company turns up in rented lodgings.”
Thus Cousin Diana dismissed Cheltenham’s dozens, perhaps over a hundred establishments, a great many of them laboring to appeal to the genteel or merely decent. She patted Cerys on the hand again.
“Shall we have dancing after dinner? Or music? I’ll ask Andover to get up some amusement for us. It is so good to have interesting company. Michael and I never had children, you know, and I do like a bit of liveliness. Though he created enough on his own, you might say.”
Cerys seemed to sense a rancorous path there and steered clear of it. “There are several among our troupe who are musical, Lady Diana. I am certain we could provide some means of entertainment.”
“I guessed you to be an accomplished young lady.” More patting. “And I told the Viscountess so when she wrote me. The whims of youth!” She chuckled. “Now, where is that very droll Mr. Manelli? The sight of his handsome countenance would refresh me a great deal.”
“How fortunate for you, Cousin Diana,” Dutton said stiffly. He was apparently irked that Dante should be wanted and determined to remind her ladyship that, by Andover’s marriage, Dutton was allied with the Howard family as well. “Here is your brooding Italian, right here.”
“Ah, Signor Manelli!” The older woman’s eyes lit with appreciation as Dante stepped forward. “Tell us all the news of Italy.”
“I have not been there for some time, Lady Diana, so I cannot be certain my news is current.”
“Ah, but you still have family there, do you not? My half-sister Margaret, she is in Calcutta, don’t you know. Married to a director of the East India Company, now. Clever Margaret. She’s done well for herself, despite being my father’s natural daughter.”
Lady Diana winked. Clearly she was not one to fret over or cover up the existence of illegitimate children. Given the great number that the royal dukes had produced, the existence of natural children could hardly be ignored in polite circles, though the high sticklers tried.
“Then perhaps you might tell us the news of India, my lady, as it is far more distant from us than Italy.”
Hopefully the woman realized these were separate continents, but too many English, ensconced in their tiny island, had little understanding of the geography or indeed the extent of the rest of the globe.
The British Navy was the greatest in the world—Nelson, at Trafalgar, had established that—and British ships brought goods to these shores from every corner of the earth, abetting the belief that England was the center of the world by culture if not by Mercator projections.
It remained to see whether the British Army and its allies could halt the depredations of the little general on the Continent. But Dante knew better than to raise such unpleasant subjects in the drawing rooms of the great.
“I’d rather hear your news, frankly,” Lady Diana said. “You Italians are such an interesting people. So passionate and brooding. And you, dear.” She turned to Cerys. “You’ve a touch of darkness in your looks as well. Italian? Indian?”
“My grandmother was African, ma’am. My mother was born on Barbados, but my grandfather brought them both to England with him. My father was Dutch. I’m told I have his eyes.”
Dutton’s eyes lit with a new interest as he appraised Miss Evans, and Dante could guess why.
All of a sudden the girl was exotic to him, with a heritage in tropical climes.
And if Miss Evans’s mother had been a natural child herself, born of an African woman that an enslaver had made his mistress, her own birth put Miss Evans firmly in the demimonde, or at least on the far fringes of respectable society.
Lady Diana didn’t bat an eye. She came from an older age, with different manners, and while she might have been born a gentlewoman, her husband, by all accounts, had been a man of the world. “And are you going to tell us who your grandfather was?” she asked coyly. “Your English grandsire.”
Cerys maintained her pleasant smile. “I make no claim to him, ma’am, as he never made claim to me.”
Her ladyship let out a bark of laughter. “Steel in her backbone! Oh, very good, child. Don’t waste yourself on the theater for too long. Your family will want you back soon enough.”
She turned toward the door as newcomers entered.
“Oh, I’ve seen that pair at the Great House.
He’s an out-and-out cad, Miss Evans. Don’t let him catch you in a dark corner.
As for his lady.” Her smile lifted into a sneer.
“I’ve never seen one so keen for climbing the social ladder, claws out.
Wonder how long it will take her to come make sweet to me. ”
Dante followed her gaze to the door and froze, as if the woman smirking from the doorway had been a Medusa, turning everyone she gazed upon to stone.
It could not be.
Bathsheba.
Here.