A Curious Courting (22 page)

Selina was regarding him with incredulity. “Henry can stay with me?”

“I have absolutely nothing to say in the matter. How can I possibly make myself more clear? I have no more influence in the matter than Penrith, McDonough or Mr. Evans, for God’s sake! And if I did, I would certainly have the boy stay with you. Oh, Lord, you’re not going to cry again, are you?”

Rushton drew in his pair and watched fascinated as her mouth quivered uncontrollably. It was too much for him, and, as much to his own surprise as hers, he caught her in his arms and stilled her lips with his own. His kiss was not comforting, or brotherly, nor was it excessively demanding, but he kissed her thoroughly, because she let him. He did not delude himself that at any other time she would have been so accommodating. Her release from the burden of anxiety she had suffered since the previous day found an outlet in his kiss. It was a moment separate in time, not to be construed in relation to the past or the future.

When he released her she said, “Thank you,” in a very soft voice and he replied, with no trace of amusement, “It was my pleasure.” He could see no sign of embarrassment in her as he gathered the reins and urged the patient pair forward. After a while she asked, “How did you injure your cheek?”

“An accident at the inn.”

“You weren’t boxing with Henry by chance?”

“No.”

“I just wondered.”

“Would you like to take a walk in the vale?”

“Another day, perhaps. I should go home and speak with Henry. Did he come to you because he was upset?”

“He asked me to convince you not to send him away. When he explained what had happened last night, I thought I understood.”

“Yes, I see. He has a great deal of confidence in you.”

Rushton laughed. “He offered to exchange my intervention for the boxing lessons. Staying with you was much more important than learning to box, you know. You must tell him that I will still come to teach him.”

“You are generous, Mr. Rushton. The stable staff said that he left shortly after dawn. I hope he did not awaken you.”

“Only incidentally,” Rushton replied, his eyes on the road ahead.

Selina looked at him questioningly but he did not satisfy her curiosity. “How is Lord John coming with the plans? I hope we didn’t keep him from them too long with our problems here. The flooding, I mean.”

“I had a note from him saying they were progressing very well. He has taken on two apprentices to do the working drawings.”

“Do you know when you’ll be ready to build?”

“Sometime in April, I imagine.”

They continued to discuss indifferent topics until they reached Shalbrook, when Selina turned to him and said, “You probably have not had breakfast. Will you come in?”

“Thank you, no. I shall have my meal at the inn.”

Selina smiled hesitantly. “Yesterday I made you miss tea, today breakfast. Would you dine with Henry and me tomorrow?”

“With pleasure.” He jumped down from the curricle and handed her out.

“We dine at six.”

He nodded and raised her hands, one after the other, to his lips. “Until tomorrow.”

The color restored to her cheeks, Selina hurried up the stairs and waved happily to Henry where he stood anxiously watching for her at the breakfast room window. Just as she reached the massive oak door, she glanced back at the drive where Mr. Rushton still stood at his horses’ heads, his eyes following her progress. Behind her she heard the door drawn open, but before hastening through it, she made him a curtsey.

Henry raced into the hall and caught Selina’s hands. “I can stay?”

“Yes, my dear. It was a misunderstanding. Though I may not be the best person to guide you, I have no intention of letting you go. We’ll muddle through together.”

“I
will
do better, Selina, I promise. You’ll see. I shall be a model gentleman, and not keep distressing you the way I have been. Rushton said it was difficult for him, too, at my age. Don’t you see what that means? There is nothing wrong with him now.”

Her eyes sparkling, Selina patted his cheek. “No, there is nothing wrong with him now—except his occasionally autocratic behavior. I have invited him to dine with us tomorrow, and he says he intends to continue your boxing lessons.”

“Really? Not for several days, I imagine, though. I dare say he is a bit bruised from his…accident.”

“What did happen this morning?” she asked, her curiosity once again piqued.

“It was the most awful thing, Selina.” Henry groaned before he relayed, in horrifying detail, the events at the inn. To his astonishment his cousin succumbed to gales of laughter, protesting that she was very sorry for all their injuries, but that it was the most amusing story she’d heard in years. Miffed at first, Henry eventually saw the more ridiculous side of the escapade, and joined in her laughter. “But don’t go telling Rushton that we laughed about it. He’s very dignified, you know.”

“He would understand,” Selina said with conviction, not sure whence the certainty sprang. “I must see to a menu for tomorrow, and I dare say you have studying to do.”

Eager to prove his reformation, Henry immediately agreed and went off to the study. Selina remained standing in the hall for some time, now grinning at his story, and again lost in more serious thoughts. When McDonough asked if he might be of assistance she pulled herself out of her reverie. “No, thank you. I shall be in the library.”

JOURNAL. March 23. I am beginning to think Cathford’s notion not so preposterous after all. Have I lost my wits? This is not at all what I envisioned, and I am not sure that it is what I want. Irrelevant anyway, in all likelihood.

From the wardrobe in a spare bedroom, Selina, with Alice’s assistance, dragged forth all the evening dresses she had once worn but long since consigned to obscurity. She had begun to make forays into walking, carriage, riding and morning dresses she had worn when she was younger, though they were sadly out of fashion. Her perusal of the
Ladies’ Magazine
had assisted her to update some of these creations, and others she had already worked on for her trips to Tunbridge Wells and Margate. In her own neighborhood, it was all very well to be an eccentric, but she had never carried the matter to extremes. When she traveled with Henry, she was always becomingly, if not entirely fashionably, dressed. There had been little call for the evening dresses, however, and she surveyed them with dismay. Not one of them had any distinctive color to it—pale primroses, pinks, and several almost entirely white.

Choosing the most presentable, she allowed Alice to assist her into it, and found to her chagrin that it did not even fit well any longer. She had filled out from her earlier boyish figure, and the gown pulled across her bosom and draped awkwardly over her hips. “It’s these thin, revealing fabrics. It won’t do at all,” she complained.

“No, miss,” Alice agreed with a shake of her head. “Shall we try another?”

None of them fit appreciably better. Selina turned dolefully to her maid. “Could you make any use of them, Alice? I daren’t ever wear even the jaconet muslin. Oh, Lord, what am I to do? I’ve invited Mr. Rushton to dine tomorrow, and I cannot very well appear in a morning dress. It would be insulting.”

If Alice had any comments to make on her mistress’ lack of foresight in dressing so abominably for the last few years, she kept them to herself. “Mrs. Armstrong in Leicester might have a model which could be suitably altered in a day. Clara could help me, as she’s frightfully clever with her needle.”

“Leicester? That will take hours!”

“Yes, miss, but I can see no other solution. You might purchase fabric in Quorn, of course, though I can’t see it would be much help. Even Clara couldn’t turn out an evening dress in that short a time.”

“No, no, of course she couldn’t. What was I thinking of to invite him for tomorrow? To invite him at all,” she murmured despairingly. “Very well, Alice. If you will order the carriage around, we’ll go to Leicester. And I had so many things planned to do today.”

Selina stopped at the study on her way out. “I have to go to Leicester, Henry. Is there anything I can get for you? Or did you wish to come along?”

“Why are you going?” he asked bluntly.

“I had out all my evening dresses and not one of them will do for dinner. It’s the most exasperating thing! If I had known I would have to go to all this trouble, I’d never have invited Mr. Rushton in the first place,” Selina said crossly.

“You’re never going to buy a made-up dress!”

“I have no choice, Henry. It is either that, or crying off the dinner.”

“Then I shall come with you. If there is nothing suitable, we’ll have to postpone it.”

“So you have become a judge of ladies’ fashions, have you, young man?” Selina laughed. “I don’t mind if you come, but do hurry. I’ve already ordered the carriage.”

Mrs. Armstrong’s shop in Leicester would not have disgraced itself on Bond Street in London. Her country clientele had the greatest faith in her claim that her fashions were the very latest, that she smuggled in designs from Paris, and that no one in the county was better equipped to outfit the Quality. Located on Peacock Lane not far from South Gate Street, the storefront was a study in Georgian elegance with no more indication of its function than the sign which read:

J. Armstrong, Modiste and Milliner.

Selina had had no cause to visit Mrs. Armstrong for many years and felt disgruntled as the bell tinkled when she entered with her cousin and maid. The giddy excitement she had felt when she visited the establishment to order her first ball gown was long gone but she felt the stirrings of interest as her gaze fell on two evening dresses displayed near the three-sided mirror. One in pale blue silk, the other in russet gauze, they caught the early afternoon light streaming through the small-paned windows. Mrs. Armstrong came hastening from the nether regions, and her eyes widened perceptibly on sight of Selina.

“Miss Easterly-Cummings! What a delight to see you again. And in the best of health, if these eyes don’t deceive me. How can I help you today?” she chirped in a merry voice, her face wreathed with smiles.

“I find myself in urgent need of an evening dress. Nothing elaborate! A demi-toilette, if you will. And something that I could take with me today. It can be altered at Shalbrook if necessary, but I must have it for tomorrow evening.” Selina turned her gaze to the russet gauze, and cocked her head consideringly. “No, I think that color would not suit me.”

“You like the gauze, though? I have something similar in an emerald green, but the lines are even more simple. Yes, that might be just the thing. Or the rose silk.” Mrs. Armstrong bobbed her head and left them, to return a few moments later with three dresses over her arm. The silver crape over a gray sarsnet slip she displayed first.

Henry shook his head firmly. “Definitely not, Selina. You’d look like someone’s mother.”

Regretfully, Selina agreed. The other two dresses, held up to her, both took Henry’s fancy and she agreed to try them on. The rose silk clung to her in an alarming fashion, and she would not have consented to exhibit it to Henry but for Mrs. Armstrong’s insistence. Moderately high in the waist, it was astonishingly low over the bosom, and Selina entered the outer room protesting, “I would have to tuck a scarf in the neckline. It’s not decent.”

“Everyone is wearing their gowns just so, Miss Easterly-Cummings,” Mrs. Armstrong protested. She turned to Henry for support. “It is elegant, is it not? Your cousin looks a very picture. The height of fashion. No, no, you must not slink down in it, my dear. That is just as it should be.” She adjusted the neckline and tiny gathered sleeves with their fall of blond. “Just so, I promise you. What do you say, sir?”

“She’ll take it,” Henry declared with an impish grin.

 “I suppose I could put a brooch right here,” Selina mused as she turned to study herself in the mirror.

Although Mrs. Armstrong’s face registered horror at the very suggestion, Henry only laughed.

“Try on the other one,” he suggested.

“Yes, it might be more modest,” Selina agreed. It was not. If anything, it was even more décolleté than the first. Mrs. Armstrong had even more difficulty urging her out into the front room where Henry waited.

“Admirable,” he intoned in what he considered an imitation of Rushton’s manner.

Selina flushed. “Don’t be ridiculous. It is worse than the last.”

“She’ll take it,” he repeated with a laugh.

“I won’t! Henry, have your wits gone begging? What would our guest think of me?”

“He would think you dressed in the height of fashion, and strikingly beautiful. I had no idea, Selina, that you could look so well. Truly I didn’t. Buy a shawl if it will make you feel any better, but you must certainly take both dresses. If you don’t, I shall buy them for you, and it would make a considerable dent in my allowance.”

“Wretched boy! A shawl won’t make the least difference, unless I tie it round my throat and let it hang down in front.”

‘There is a shawl that goes with the dress, Miss Easterly-Cummings,” Mrs. Armstrong assured her, aghast at the suggestion of such an improper use of that item, “but I am sure you would wish only to drape it about your shoulders.”

“Of course she will,” Henry declared stoutly.

“Haven’t you anything less. . . more modest?” Selina asked desperately.

Mrs. Armstrong frowned. “Anything more modest would not be fashionable, and I would not carry it.”

“You see,” Henry said triumphantly. “You’ll be all the crack, Selina. You look grand, truly you do. I think I like this one even better than the other, but I insist on your taking both of them.”

“You haven’t a thing to say to it,” she retorted. Catching her reflection in the mirror, she had to admit that the dress was vastly becoming. But she did not want Mr. Rushton to think that she had dressed so elegantly just to impress him. She sighed. Really, there was no choice. She had to take one of the dresses, or cancel the dinner. And she did not wish to be caught without the proper apparel again. “I will take them both.”

Chapter Seventeen