Chapter Nine
My dearest Willoughby. You’d think we were preparing to walk the plank, not attend a country dance. Fitzsimmons is mooching about the place as if I’ve stolen his favourite battallion.
PS Thank you for the verse. I take issue with “She is lovely as the hawthorn tree. And with a glance could shatter me.” I adore you, Willoughby, with every fibre of my being, I really do.
But have you smelled hawthorn? It’s reminiscent of a decomposing corpse.
Surely Lavinia’s parfum is an improvement on that!
Papa. Our social whirl continues apace with a village dance.
BELOW STAIRS, EXCITEMENT for the forthcoming fête was palpable.
And in striking contrast to the all-pervasive, funereal whiff upstairs, where Lord Lyndon stalked the corridors with a face like a cat licking piss from a nettle.
When not baking, steaming, broiling, and doing whatever else was required to produce such excellent dinners, Lucy and Cook could be found trimming their Sunday-best outfits with gaudy ribbons and practicing the quadrille with two brooms as makeshift partners.
Tucked into the comfiest kitchen chair with his boots propped on a pair of firedogs, Rollo was a more than willing seamstress.
“So, everybody in Goule attends this dance, yes?” With a length of lemon-yellow satin draped across his lap, he made short work of banding a straw hat.
“And all the folks from the cottages up on Beccles Ridge too. Proper grand affair it is, seeing as the Fitzsimmons foot the bill. They have done since my da was a boy.”
“By ‘the Fitzsimmons’, do you mean Lord Lyndon?”
“Since he took up living here full time these last two years, yes. His father before him—” She pulled a face. “He wasn’t much for looking after the village, the old duke—no one liked him very much. And Her Grace was even worse. But he always coughed up for that.”
In comparison, his son sounded generous to a fault. “So, the Fitzsimmons are always in attendance?”
Cook shook her head. “The old Duke and Duchess, never, even if they were summering at Goule. And his lordship hasn’t been seen at the dance since he were a lad.
” She lifted her head from her stitching to give Rollo a toothy smile.
“I wasn’t sure you were up to the job when I met you, sir, begging your pardon.
But you’ve started putting the sunshine back in him.
You’ve got a way about you, if you don’t mind my saying. ”
“I have done nothing, Cook. It’s all down to Mr Simpson’s visit.”
The woman shook her head. “He’s been more like his old self all this past week since you’ve been joining him after dinner. He likes the company.”
Rollo chuckled, recalling yesterday evening’s hour after dinner.
For the first quarter, Lord Lyndon pretended Rollo wasn’t there.
For the second, he poked at the fire whilst grumbling about the smoke his efforts produced, and for the remaining half hour, greeted every single one of Rollo’s attempts at civilised discourse with a pained noise and a look of intense annoyance.
He also watched very carefully when Rollo removed his coat (thanks to the roaring fire) and loosened his cravat, though Rollo kept those fascinating details to himself.
“I’m afraid you have been misinformed, Cook. We spar continually. I assure you he loathes me like young fruit facing a late frost.”
His audience was unimpressed. “All I’m saying is, he’s got much more of a spring in his step. He’s beset by the blue devils if he spends too much time on his own or with Mr Elliot.”
That name had cropped up at dinner with the Simpsons. “Who is this Mr Elliot? Mr Simpson asked after his welfare.”
“An old friend of his.” Cook and Lucy exchanged a look, and Cook crossed herself. “His lordship looks out for him.”
“Will he be at the dance too?”
Lucy smirked. “Not unless they move the dance to his front parlour.”
“Hush, girl.” Cook gave the housemaid a disapproving look. “It’s bad luck to gossip about the afflicted. My da used to run down old Dick Cooper something rotten—he had a hunchback—and my da had two fits of the apoplexy and died. So there.”
Rollo could have pointed out that a case study of one was hardly scientific proof. But judging from the sage manner in which Lucy chipped in with a similar tale about her now deceased aunt and a boy with six toes on both feet, he held his tongue.
“That rose pink is delightful, Lucy,” he remarked instead as she held her handiwork up against her. “You shall be the belle of the ball!” And then, because naughtiness ran through his veins, added, “Will Jack, the stable lad, be attending this marvellous festivity?”
“Yes, he will,” interrupted Cook. “And he’ll be keeping his wandering hands to himself unless he wants to feel my rolling pin up against his arse.”
Kings and paupers shared more common ground than a ton soirée and a Norfolk country dance.
For a start, the rural affair promised to be ten times more fun.
And dazzlingly bright. The ton’s latest, muted sartorial styles had not reached Norfolk, as evidenced by the array of ladies’ costumes, patched and decorated from any of the previous five decades.
Most menfolk stuck to Sunday best—dark breeches and clean linen.
In his lavender tailcoat, intricately detailed at the collar and cuffs, Rollo was easily the brightest peacock on show.
“Lucy, my dear, you are a vision,” he exclaimed, taking the serving maid’s arm.
In lieu of a smart London ballroom, they were crammed into a dusty barn festooned with so many green boughs and garlands of summer blooms, Rollo felt he’d been transported back to the orangery at Rossingley.
“Young Jack has not dragged his eyes away since we danced that polka.”
“And I’d have danced it with him if Cook wasn’t bleeding watching me like a hawk.”
Rollo pouted in pretend dismay. “Then I shall insist she partner me for the jig, sweep her over to the far side of the barn, and distract her with a thorough ravaging.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Whilst you are ravaged by young Jack.”
He delivered a flouncy little bow, making her giggle. “But first, I must have a stern word with our dear patron, Lord Lyndon. He appears to have entirely forgotten that the purpose of a dance is to dance and make merry.”
They both looked over to where Fitzsimmons loomed beside a pillar, a little like a pillar himself.
Rollo heaved a sigh. Since arriving at the dance, two things had become perfectly clear.
One: Lord Lyndon danced as stiffly as a longcase clock and with similar levels of enthusiasm.
Two: Lord Lyndon was still sulking, fond of rout cakes, and so many shades of devilishly handsome dressed head to toe in forbidding black, that when his polished mahogany eyes, flecked with bronze, landed on Rollo, he forgot to breathe.
Fitzsimmons wore formal attire the way others wore their own skin, the fabric moulded to his masculine frame as if affixed there by God’s hand.
A few of the ladies present weren’t immune either.
A whole cluster trailed in his wake, not that the man took the slightest notice.
“My lord,” Rollo began as he sidled up to him. “As fetching as you are, slouched against that foliage, you might use the next dance as an opportunity to practise the art of conversation. An area of allure in which, sadly, you lack proficiency.”
Lord Lyndon treated him to the sort of intense glower that would make a lesser mortal crumble (and by that Rollo included everybody not blessed with his superior Duchamps-Avery lineage).
On Rollo, it had quite the reverse effect, especially coming from this man whom God had constructed, as far as Rollo could tell, from a lush sheet of granite.
“I’m not against talking to people, in general,” Lord Lyndon declared with his usual lazy disdain. “I simply prefer to interact as infrequently as possible. My tongue has a regrettable tendency to utter words best left unsaid. Is there something wrong with that, pup?”
“Nothing at all, my lord. But do you have to make it quite so obvious? You almost smiled two days ago. It took ten years off your age! That furrowed groove between your eyebrows entirely disappeared.” Rollo indicated to the perfectly smooth spot between his own brows.
“If you repeat the action again tonight, you could easily pass yourself off as no older than thirty years.”
The furrow deepened. “I am no older than bloody thirty years! I entered my thirty-first year not two months ago!”
Rollo’s blue eyes widened as he feigned shock. Gadzooks, this man’s nerves were easy to prod. “Good heavens! Did you really?”
“Yes!”
Safe from bows and arrows, Rollo treated him to a condescending pat on the arm. “Then you’re a mere stripling, Fitz. Go forth! Drink, dance, and woo. You’re the guest of honour! Put on a show!”
A tick started in the lord’s strong jaw. “I am not a performing seal. And, unless your cheeks want to feel the back of my hand, I strongly suggest you refrain from calling me Fitz.”
Rollo hooted with laughter. “That all depends on which cheeks you have in mind. Fitz.”
He was still chortling to himself as he weaved through the crowds in search of Cook, his next dance partner, and refreshment.
As fun as needling the lord was, it mostly served to remind him how handsome he was, how infuriating he was, and how Rollo would relish crawling across that broad chest—no doubt covered in as much delicious, thick, reddish hair as the man’s whiskers promised.
“Is this what you’re looking for?” A pleasant-looking chap, cleanly but shabbily dressed, proffered a cup of punch. “Take one. I have two.”
“Gladly,” Rollo replied. “And thank you, sir. Much obliged. I would drink it with you, except I have an important engagement with the dancefloor and that delightful lady over there.”
He pointed to where Cook appeared to be giving Lucy a piece of her mind, then turned back to the man.
“Perhaps later, then,” the man answered.