X #3
“Rory, you know perfectly well that you behaved very badly, and that there is still a good deal that ought to be said. Why, if Mama knew anything about it, she would very likely suffer one of her spasms, so we are fortunate that no one happened to be there who knows you are her granddaughter. I assure you, if she were to hear of it, it would distress her very much.” She paused to see what, if any, effect her words were having.
Rory bit her lip, which Nell took to be a good sign.
She went on gently. “Huntley believes you had no notion how the spirits would affect you. Is he correct in that belief?” The young girl’s gaze shifted back to the hairpins, and the color in her cheeks deepened by at least two shades.
“I thought as much,” Nell said. “You are too intelligent, my dear, not to have guessed how it would be. What did you drink?”
“Two very small glasses of champagne,” Rory answered readily. “Mr. Seton’s sister and her husband were partaking of a bottle when we arrived and offered some to us. I did not think it would matter if I had a little.”
“And the gin? Where did you come by that, Rory?”
Rory tried to look innocent but failed entirely and turned her eyes away again when Nell merely returned the look with one of patience.
“Mr. Seton had a flask in his coat pocket. I only had a bit—maybe three or four swallows. The first burned, you know. It was much worse than the champagne. That only tickled my nose. But Kit and Harry said to try again—that’s when I choked, which they found vastly humorous.
They said the second and third swallows would go down much more easily.
And they were right. I thought it very peculiar that the first would be like swallowing fire and the others so much softer. Why do you suppose that is?”
“I have not the slightest notion,” Nell replied, trying to retain her stern attitude and finding it difficult because her sense of the ridiculous was stirring. “Rory, I know you were only curious, but you did know that it was foolish to drink such stuff.”
“You sound like Huntley.”
“He was very much annoyed. You are lucky to have escaped his displeasure so lightly, my dear.”
“I did expect him to bellow a bit more tonight,” Rory confessed. “But I don’t think he really cared much. It would have been different if I had made a scandal, of course.”
“How can you say that when you know he is to be your husband?” Nell demanded. “Of course he cares. He lost his temper earlier because he cares, and tonight he was gentle because of his belief that you had no clear understanding of how the stuff would affect you.”
“Do you truly think him such a slowtop as all that, ma’am?”
The question caught Nell off guard. She blinked, the brush hovering in midair. “A slowtop? What a thing to say, Rory. Of course he is no slowtop. I think his understanding is superior.”
“Well, so do I,” Rory replied flatly. “So, how can you think he believed such stuff? Moreover, when he bellowed at me, he said nothing about my innocence. He was angry that I had made a spectacle of myself, that I had perhaps endangered my reputation, but it was not he, after all, who pointed out that I might have done myself an injury if I had been so unfortunate as to fall off that stupid wall.”
“I collect, then,” Nell said dryly, “that Major Talcott did point out that fact.”
“Yes, he did.” Rory sounded nearly defiant, and her look as much as dared Nell to make something of it.
Nell smiled. “I’m glad he did. And that you seem to have had the good sense to believe him. Do you think you would have believed Huntley if he had said as much to you?”
The shrug that was her sole reply told Nell her thrust had gone home.
But what good it had done she was at a loss to discover, and she could scarcely credit herself with having brought Rory to a clearer understanding of the impropriety of her behavior on the esplanade.
If anyone had done that, the credit must go to Major Talcott.
From what Nell could read in Rory’s expression now, and despite any thoughts Huntley might have expressed to the contrary, the fact that the major had been displeased to hear of her of her antics was the only thing that had been preying upon her mind when she had made her apologies earlier.
Therefore, when Nell took herself off to her own bedchamber, it was not to sleep but to lie in bed with a good many thoughts for company.
Chief among these was a growing belief that her niece was too young altogether to be thinking about marriage.
Particularly marriage to such a man as Huntley.
He had already suggested that he found her tiresome.
She certainly resented his slightest interference in her life, while something in her very nature seemed to stir his exasperation.
And, clearly, something in his stirred her to anger, bitterness, and yet more childish behavior.
If he were unwise enough to take her to task over some issue or other, she rebelled or sulked.
Yet, Major Talcott had only to express displeasure and to look stern, and she was offering apologies to everyone.
Nell had the oddest notion that Huntley might have demanded an apology till doomsday without getting one.
She turned that thought over once or twice, examining it more closely.
It seemed to underscore the fact that Rory was not yet ready for marriage.
Perhaps the thing to do was to discuss the fact of her youth with Rory herself.
Surely, if she could be brought to see that it would behoove her to wait a year or two, it would be a simple matter to convince Crossways and Clarissa.
Well, Nell amended silently, perhaps not Clarissa.
She would no doubt be longing to get her daughter firmly wed to someone of solid means, and Huntley was ideal for her purpose.
But even so, if Rory herself balked at the notion, Clarissa would at least hesitate.
And Crossways, besotted as he had always shown himself to be over his beloved eldest daughter, would not think twice about calling off a wedding that was not to her liking.
Then Huntley might look about for another suitable choice.
It was clear enough to one who knew him that he had already begun to entertain second thoughts about the wisdom of marrying someone as young as Rory.
Nell had no doubt that much of the blame for their difficulties rested in the disparity between their ages.
No doubt Rory compared him to her father, from whom she was unused to encountering any restraint, and consequently she resented Huntley’s efforts to curb her more outrageous starts.
Major Talcott, on the other hand, was several years younger than Huntley.
The fact that Rory responded when he chose to lay a hand to the rein was, Nell told herself, merely an indication that she tended to respond more positively to reproval from gentlemen nearer her in age.