CHAPTER TEN
“I just met Aubrey in the hall. What is all this about you two driving to the Tower with Lord Hastings?”
Laura’s eyes were pulled to the girl standing arms akimbo at the top of the stairs. Her smile died away as she noted a trace of something that might be called accusation in her cousin’s voice, but she replied pleasantly, “Yes, we did.”
Sophia, watching Laura’s ascent, seemed to find this confirmation insufficient. “How did this excursion come about? I was not aware that Lord Hastings had invited you to drive out with him, to say nothing of Aubrey.”
“He called this morning, and in the course of the conversation said he’d be pleased to drive me to any of the places in London that I had not yet seen. I knew Aubrey wished to see the kings’ effigies in the Tower, so that is where we went. We drove past St. Paul’s also, which was really thrilling.”
Sophia narrowly eyed the taller girl, who had now arrived at the first floor. “Are you saying his invitation was for you and Aubrey?”
Laura’s hesitation was brief. “Not originally, but he was very gracious about including Aubrey when I mentioned him.”
“Well, I will give you credit for sheer nerve,” her cousin said with grudging admiration, “but I promise you, when a man invites me to drive out with him, my little brother will not be sitting bodkin with us in the carriage.”
Sophia had lost her cousin’s attention, however. “Good afternoon, Mr. Trent,” Laura said, looking past her.
Sophia whirled around to see a man descending from the second floor.
Laura had greeted him matter-of-factly, but the gentleman seemed to feel some explanation was called for as he doffed his hat.
“How do you do, Miss Marsh. I forgot my gloves this morning and have just retrieved them,” he said into the pregnant silence, his voice dying to a muted croak as his gaze shifted briefly to the dark-haired girl.
“Of course. Sophie, I believe you have not yet met Aubrey’s tutor, Mr. Martin Trent? Miss Albright, Mr. Trent.”
The gentleman bowed, the lady dipped a little curtsy. Both murmured indistinctly; neither smiled.
Laura glanced from one polite unrevealing countenance to the other in wonder as the silence lengthened until she felt constrained to end it.
Instead of demanding what ailed the pair of them, which speculation occupied the forefront of her mind at the moment, she held on to her manners, asking distractedly of the tutor, “Was Aubrey in the schoolroom when you went to fetch your gloves?”
“He came bursting in, exhilarated by his afternoon adventure,” Mr. Trent said with a little smile directed at the questioner. “Unfortunately I am late for an appointment and could not stay to hear the details.”
“Then we won’t detain you, sir,” Laura said cheerfully, stepping back to allow him a clear passage to the stairs, as did a wordless Sophia, sweeping her skirts behind her.
“Good afternoon, Miss Marsh, Miss Albright,” he said, nodding to each before replacing his hat and heading down the stairs.
Neither girl moved until the sound of his footsteps faded, then Sophia found her voice. “I must change for dinner,” she said, turning from her surprised cousin and hurrying toward her bedchamber.
Laura’s steps going up to her own room were considerably slower, but her mental activity was at high velocity as she sought to make sense of what she had just witnessed.
A disinterested observer would doubtless have reported that a gentleman and a lady had been introduced by a third party and had responded with appropriate civility, but Laura was the antithesis of a disinterested observer.
She could not claim to know Sophia well on such a short acquaintance, but her position in the bosom of the Albright family at present offered a unique vantage point for studying her lovely cousin.
Sophia had always appeared loquacious and ebullient in company, emboldened perhaps by the comforting knowledge that from childhood she had been universally held to be uncommonly pretty.
Though Lord Hastings was the only personable young man they’d yet seen at close quarters, Sophia’s behaviour in his company seemed to promise a penchant for flirtation equal to his own.
She had also displayed a hint of pique just now at discovering that he had invited her cousin to drive out with him, which betokened a feminine competitiveness that Laura decided she had better not lose sight of in the interest of maintaining amicable relations while in her uncle’s house.
At this stage Laura was brought up short in her analysis of her cousin’s character, for Sophia’s reaction to the handsome Mr. Trent had not been what she had been anticipating; quite the opposite, in fact. Far from assuming a flirtatious mien, Sophia had met the tutor with perfect indifference.
Except that it had not felt like indifference somehow.
Laura paused in the act of stepping out of her gown as she tried to recapture the atmosphere during the meeting in the hallway.
Awkward was the word that leapt to mind; certainly that would describe poor Mr. Trent’s feelings at accidentally imposing himself between members of the family with whom he would not ordinarily have social interaction in his role as Aubrey’s tutor.
Her own first meeting with him had not been so charged, but then she had felt for his confusion and deliberately tried to put him at ease, while Sophia had not bestirred herself to do likewise today.
That would argue indifference, Laura conceded, slipping her arms into the sleeves of a honey-coloured gown.
Sophia being Sophia, Laura had expected some reaction to the aesthetic perfection of Mr. Trent’s person, but the girl had said nothing at all after the tutor had gone.
Considering how she had catechised her cousin about the circumstances of Lord Hastings’ invitation to drive, it was odd that she had displayed no interest in how Laura had become acquainted with Mr. Trent.
Laura was doing up the buttons of her dress when an explanation occurred to her. Could it be that a mere tutor was so completely outside of her cousin’s world that he did not merit any ordinary human interest? She found this thought distinctly chilling.
She maintained a covert but continuous observation of her cousin that evening, half expecting to hear some joking reference to her brother’s tutor after the ladies left Sir Oswald to his port in the dining room.
Sophia had been her smiling chatty self at dinner, regaling her father with news of the Chandlers’ new carriage and the latest peccadilloes of the son of the house whose years at Oxford had been distinguished by official reprimands and warnings.
She had then plied her parent with seemingly artless questions that kept him pontificating on the current political situation throughout the meal, sparing his sister and niece the obligation of contributing more than civil murmurs in his occasional pauses.
In the saloon after dinner Sophia went immediately to the pianoforte, leaving her aunt and cousin to entertain each other.
This was no hardship since Mrs. Marsh was as desirous of hearing all about her daughter’s afternoon outing as Laura was of describing her reactions to two great monuments to their history.
If Sophia’s tactics were intended to prevent any mention of Mr. Trent, they were successful but redundant, for Laura would not have introduced his name in any case.
However, if she hoped to thus bury the meeting in the hall and drive it out of her cousin’s mind, then her efforts were not crowned by success, for Laura retired with her curiosity piqued rather than allayed.
Though she certainly did not plan to dwell on the matter, she did record the meeting in the new journal her mother had presented to her after one of their initial shopping forays.
Life in the Albright household accelerated over the next ten days before Easter and the official start of the season.
There were still final fittings to be endured at Mrs. Reyburn’s establishment before the last of the bespoken gowns would be delivered, and there were accessories to be purchased for the various costumes.
The dancing lessons with M. Charpentier continued in the mornings, and as the improved weather happily coincided with the acquisition of their new wardrobes, the ladies began to take part in the time-honoured custom of walking in the Park.
Laura had been delighted with the idea of stretching her legs in a more natural setting than city pavements, but she soon discovered that walking in Hyde Park meant a slow stroll, punctuated by frequent halts to bow or chat with acquaintances who might be walking, driving or riding.
Since the Marsh ladies had few acquaintances as yet.
their progress was less impeded than other parties, but it could not be called exercise.
Her wistful eyes were drawn to those fortunate souls enjoying a brisk canter in the spring air, but she reminded herself that simply being outdoors was a blessing in itself whenever wistfulness threatened to become envy.
Laura was not present when her mother and Lord Exton gazed upon each other for the first time in more than two decades.
The encounter followed shortly upon M. Charpentier’s departure after one of the dancing lessons.
Sophia and Laura had retired to their rooms, leaving Mrs. Marsh to oversee the replacement of the carpet and furniture while she sorted through some of the music sheets she’d been using during the session.
The young women, summoned back to the saloon a few moments later to greet callers, met on the threshold and entered together, unconscious of the appealing picture they presented, each bright-eyed and slightly flushed from her recent exertions.