Chapter 6 #2
“I am looking forward to meeting young Lady Winifred,” the young woman told him with a look of gentle softness that boded well for his daughter’s future. “I regret that I cannot meet her before the wedding but I do understand your decision.”
“My little Winnie is so very shy and young, Lady Frances,” the duke replied, smiling as he thought of his child. “I prefer not to introduce you until I can do so very firmly as my wife, her stepmother and Duchess of Westall.”
Lady Frances nodded her understanding. Although she had suggested that Winifred join her sister and friend as bridesmaid at the wedding, she had not argued when Ambrose explained that Winifred would only wish to hide behind her great-grandmother in front of so many people at the church.
By society standards, it was not to be a big wedding, but it was still big enough for a shy nine-year-old child.
“What does Winnie look like?” she asked, following his lead in use of the diminutive name, and Ambrose’s smile deepened.
Impulsively, the Duke of Westall reached into his pocket and withdrew a silver locket which he opened to reveal a miniature by a talented artist who had perfectly captured the dark curls and grave blue-green eyes with which little Winifred regarded strangers so guardedly.
“This was taken last year, when Winnie was eight years old. The artist made two and my grandmother has the other.”
Lady Frances made a soft, tender sound as she took the locket from his hand and gazed on the picture within.
“She is lovely, Your Grace. What a sweet child, and how well she has smiled for the portrait.”
“I stood beside her holding her hand for hours,” admitted Ambrose with some laughter. “I was afraid of running out of amusing stories before the artist was done.”
“Whatever you told her was clearly appreciated,” Lady Frances remarked, her eyes still on Winnie’s picture.
Then she sighed a little, closed the locket and went to hand it back to Ambrose. His ungloved hand closed on hers and their eyes met, Lady Frances’ expression a little startled at this development although making no move to step back from him.
“Keep it,” the duke said, willing – but not really wanting – her to withdraw her hand as a familiar heat began to flow in his veins from the slight skin contact.
“I cannot,” she protested, her grey eyes earnest. “It belongs to you as Winnie’s father and evidently means a great deal to you if you carry it about in your breast pocket.”
“You are to be Winifred’s stepmother,” Ambrose pointed out. “Consider it only a loan, and return the locket to me on our wedding day. As I cannot introduce you to my daughter in person yet, please accept the locket in lieu of a meeting.”
“Very well,” Lady Frances finally agreed, slowly pulling back her hand and slipping the locket into the pocket of her skirt.
“I do like the idea of having Winifred’s portrait about me since we are soon to be family.
I only hope she will like me. Children do not always take to their stepmothers, you know. ”
“I have no such doubts,” the duke assured her, putting his own hands behind his back to ward off the temptation of touching her again.
A few minutes later, following the arrival of the final members of the dinner party, the gong sounded for dinner.
“You will miss Frances when she leaves for Westall Park, I am sure,” remarked Lady Orville as the main course was served. “I know that we shall be sorry not to have her dropping in for tea on one of her walks, won’t we?”
This consultation of the views of her husband and son elicited a murmur of polite agreement from Lord Orville, but only a slight nod from their well-refreshed offspring.
Hubert, Lord Baxforth looked to be less than twenty-years but already over-fond of his drink.
The Duke of Westall noticed the butler’s enquiring glance to Lord Scovell before refilling the youth’s empty wine glass for the third time already.
Would there be an incident tonight, Ambrose wondered?
If so, he guessed that Lord Scovell and his butler would be equal to it.
“I shall certainly miss my Frances,” agreed Lady Scovell without reservation, smiling towards the subject of this conversation, seated beside her husband-to-be. “But I shall have Beatrice still to keep me company for a few years yet. You will miss Frances too, won’t you, Edmund?”
“I shall,” admitted Lord Scovell with as little hesitation as his wife but a vulnerability of expression that suggested he well-expected the scornful glance that his eldest daughter threw towards him in reaction to these words.
“Edmund and Frances were always the best of friends when she was a little girl,” said Helen Harcourt, ignoring or perhaps ignorant of the cool current flowing between her husband and daughter.
“After Beatrice was born, I was unwell for a long time, and very wrapped up in the new baby. I suppose they had to keep company.”
“That does sometimes happen after a baby,” sympathized Lady Appleton.
“I recall that Lady Hollingford did not leave her home for a full two years after her first son was born. The physicians were coming and going every week but nothing could be done until the unbalanced humors had run their course.”
“I was not quite that bad, was I, dear?” asked Lady Scovell of her husband, who took her hand and kissed it with a fond smile.
“You were never bad. I only wished you well again, with all my heart,” he said, eliciting little murmurs of praise and sympathy from the ladies around the table.
“When I was ill, Edmund used to take Frances tramping all over the countryside,” Lady Scovell continued to reminisce. “They were always calling at your house for tea, weren't they, Lady Orville?”
“Indeed, they were, and always very welcome too,” replied Lady Orville, smiling as she recalled pleasant memories. “Sometimes Frances would stay and play with Hubert’s older sisters. Of course, more often, Lord Scovell would take her over to Mulford Manor to play with Oswald.”
“Ah, yes, young Lord Mulford. Have you seen him recently? He seems to spend most of his time in Mayfair nowadays and I have lost track. It was such a tragedy about his parents, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, poor Penelope, and poor Maurice too,” murmured Lady Scoville with an expression of real pity.
“Mulford Manor was never a peaceful home for Oswald, was it? Then, after Maurice…departed for the continent, and Oswald went away to school, Penelope was never the same. Of course, I had been ill and did not know the family as well as Frances and Edmund.”
Beside him at the table, the Duke of Weston became aware of a growing tension in the body of Lady Frances as her mother and neighbor talked.
Glancing at her face unobtrusively, Ambrose saw a tightly set jaw and angry eyes.
What on earth had been said to upset her so?
Perhaps she disapproved of gossip, but the conversation appeared very mild to his ears.
“Ah yes, you were fast friends with the Keetons for a time, weren’t you, Lord Scovell?” remarked Lady Orville.
At this innocent comment, and before the suddenly red-faced Lord Scovell could answer, Lady Frances, seemingly involuntarily, set down her cutlery with a clatter that drew eyes from around the room. She recovered herself quickly.
“I will miss Scovell Hall and the whole neighborhood but I am also looking forward to my new home at Westall Park,” she pronounced, to general approval.
“That is very much how I felt when I married Lord Appleton,” said old Lady Appleton. “I wept to leave my mother, but at the same time, I could not wait to be in my own home with dear Jasper. Then there was all the excitement of the wedding night to look forward to…”
The Duke of Westall repressed a chuckle at the look of alarm that passed between Lady Scovell and Lady Orville at the dowager countess’s shift towards inappropriate dinner table subjects.
“Frances is to be a stepmother, Aunt Caroline,” Helen Harcourt firmly attempted to turn the ship of conversation into safer waters. “Did you know that? His Grace has a dear little girl of only nine years, Lady Winifred.”
“A fine stepmother my great-niece will make, I’m sure,” agreed Lady Appleton, “and a fine mother too when the time comes. I remember when I was first married…”
Lady Scovell cleared her throat loudly and looked to her husband for assistance with an expression that told Ambrose that Lady Appleton was likely Edmund Harcourt’s relative rather than his wife’s.
Ambrose decided that he would step in, if necessary.
Why not raise a toast to his future wife’s family and thank them for welcoming him? Yes, that would work.
Before he could carry through his plan, a less civil disturbance distracted the garrulous old lady from her path and prevented further immediate disclosures about intimate matters in the early days of her marriage.
“Hubert!” reprimanded Lord Orville sharply as a full glass of claret went pouring across the pristine white table cloth, knocked by the young man’s exaggerated drunken movements with his knife and fork.
“I am so sorry!” exclaimed Lady Orville, looking mortified.
“We will deal with it,” said Lord Scovell quickly, gesturing to the servants one of whom flung a napkin into the liquid while the other conferred with the butler and then went racing away to fetch something. “These things happen, Lady Orville.”
“…can’t take you anywhere…terrible behavior,” Ambrose heard Lord Orville muttering to his son, “…you are a disgrace…”
Beside him, Lady Frances sighed, oddly less bothered by this incident than the innocent earlier conversation.
“If they had left Hubert alone at Orville House tonight, they would have had to lock up all the decanters and hide the key to wine cellar,” Lady Frances leaned across and whispered in Ambrose’s ear. “He was thrown out of Oxford for drinking and now they don’t know what to do with him.”
The Duke of Westall exhaled slowly, untouched by the story of the dipsomaniac young Lord Baxworth, but rather stirred by the tickle of Lady Frances’ warm breath on his ear and the faint scent of violets and lily-of-the-valley that wafted from her skin.
When he looked up again, Lord Orville had hauled up his recalcitrant son from his seat and was speaking to Lord Scovell, as two maids worked quickly to remove and replace the linen and tableware for that section of the long table.
“He must sit in the library until we are finished,” said Lord Orville crossly. “He is not fit for civilized company.”
“But I haven’t finished eating!” protested Hubert in slurred tones, his hair falling untidily over his brow as he licked his lips and looked longingly back at his roast beef.
“A tray can be brought to the library with dinner and coffee,” Lord Scovell offered tactfully.
“Thank you, but he does not deserve such kind treatment,” the youth’s father at first resisted. “He ought to sit alone in silence and think about his selfishness.”
“Food will sober him up faster than anything else,” argued their host. “That would be to everyone’s benefit, I believe.”
“Maybe you are right,” Lord Orville answered, calming down and coming round to this way of thinking. “I will escort him to the library myself. Is the drinks cabinet locked in there?”
“We keep no drink in the library,” Lord Scoville assured his neighbor.
“I say,” Hubert tried to object as his father strong-armed him from the room. “I want to stay here and…”
“You will do as you are told, young man!” grumbled the older man, pulling him through the open door.
As they vanished, Lady Orville looked as though she might cry.
“I am so embarrassed, Lady Scovell,” she told her hostess.
Ambrose stood up and raised his glass, deciding that this would be no bad time for a round of toasts.
“Let us not worry about spilled wine tonight,” he began, with a smile to Lady Orville. “These accidents can always be put right and are rarely as bad as we fear. Rather than apologies, I’d like to offer some thanks…”