A Wicked Gentleman (10 page)

Aurelia, who was bending down at a flower bed searching for snowdrops with Susannah, glanced up with a comprehending smile. “Well, you haven't exactly been very polite to him. Any man worth his salt is going to give provocation for provocation.”

“A gentleman would turn the other cheek,” Cornelia said.

“Oh, Nell, you know you don't believe that,” Aurelia scoffed, straightening up. “He was rude to you, and you got your own back in spades, I would have said. Can you blame him for being less than servile?”

“I don't want servility,” Cornelia protested, half-laughing. “But civility. If he'd been civil this morning, I would have been too.”

Aurelia let it go. “More to the point, what was he doing here?” she questioned. “I thought he understood yesterday that the house was not for sale.”

“So did I,” Cornelia said. “But he did say he would call upon Liv again. She'll refuse to receive him, of course, but he obviously intends to try again to persuade her to sell.”

 

Harry knocked on the door to the late Lady Sophia's house.

The door was opened by the old retainer in a baize apron. He looked up at the visitor in silence, his exprssion one of indifference.

“Is Lady Livia Lacey receiving this morning?” Harry asked, proffering his card.

“You was 'ere yesterday,” the man stated, ignoring the card.

“Yes. Viscount Bonham. Please take my card to Lady Livia.” Harry tried to conceal his irritation. Instinct told him it was not the way to gain favorable attention from this creaky old man.

“Well, I dunno about that.” Morecombe took the card and held it up to his eyes for close examination. “I didn't 'ave no orders.”

“You don't need orders to take a visitor's card to your mistress,” Harry stated with deliberate patience. It seemed that the only way to deal with this obstructive old man was on the retainer's own terms, step-by-step. He said again just as patiently. “Would you please present it to Lady Livia?”

“Wait 'ere then.” The man sniffed, stepped back, and closed the door, leaving Harry standing on the doorstep.

Harry turned to look across the street to the square garden. He couldn't see the women or their children through the thick privet hedge lining the railings, but he could hear the occasional childish squeal of glee. He felt like a hapless batsman at a cricket match facing a fiendishly fast bowler; at each bowl the bail flew off the stumps before he could get close to the ball. His preconceptions about this situation were being knocked off in much the same inexorable fashion. Not one elderly lady but three young ones, none of whom resembled the kind of society women he was accustomed to either in manner or conduct. There were children and a tumbledown house run with all the efficiency of a Moroccan souk by an elderly retainer who had to be coaxed to do his job, and even then only if he was so inclined.

But still, he had to work with what he was given, Harry reflected with rueful resignation. He was used to adapting materials to his own needs.

The door creaked open a few inches, and his card was thrust at him. “'Er ladyship said as 'ow she's not receivin'.”

Harry took the card. Its unceremonious return was tantamount to a statement that he was not welcome in this house. It was a deliberate insult, and he couldn't for the life of him think what he had done to deserve it. To his knowledge he had not offended Lady Livia. He'd only met her the once, and they'd barely exchanged two words.

The door had almost closed on his fingers as he'd taken back the card, and he stood for a second in thought tapping it into the palm of his hand.
What now?

He turned to stare again at the square garden. If Livia would not receive him, he could hardly work his charm upon her, but Lady Farnham was out in the open. If he could get her alone, maybe he could gain some leverage there.

As if on cue, Lady Farnham emerged from the garden, her only companion her daughter, whom she held firmly by the hand. They started to cross the street to the house, and the child suddenly dropped to her knees in the middle of the road, her eye caught by the iridescent gleam of a pigeon's feather.

“Look, Mama.” She tried to pick it up, but a gust of wind caught it and sent it fluttering along the street. The child wrenched free of her mother's hand and chased after the prize just as a dray barreled around the corner from Wigmore Street.

“Franny!” Aurelia shouted, starting after the child, who continued her headlong pursuit of the elusive feather, her pigtails flying behind her.

Harry moved fast. He snatched the child up from the street and carried her kicking and screaming to the pavement. The cart horses pulling the dray clopped past, and Aurelia arrived, pale and breathless, on the pavement.

“Thank you…Franny, how many times must I tell you not to let go of my hand on the street?” She took the girl from Harry, and Franny instantly burst into a howling flood of tears.

“Feather…my feather…” She pointed at the feather that had come to rest again in the middle of the street. Her voice rose to a shriek.
“I want my feather.”

Harry retrieved it and brought it back. She took it, and, instantly, the tears dried.

“Thank you,” Aurelia said again.

“I don't think she was in any danger,” Harry said. “Not unless she changed direction suddenly.”

“Which would not have been unusual,” Aurelia said with a sigh. “She's a child of impulse, I'm afraid. But thank you again for such a quick reaction.” She turned to go back into the house.

“Lady Farnham?”

“Yes?” She glanced back at him.

“I would like very much to discuss some business with Lady Livia, but it seems she will not receive me.” He offered a questioning smile. “I'm not aware of how I might have offended her.”

“Oh.” Aurelia hesitated. “Lady Livia is not interested in selling the house, Lord Bonham. That's all I know.”

“So I've been told. But I would like to hear her say that herself.”

Aurelia glanced over his shoulder towards the square garden. “We are all close friends, my lord,” she said. “I wish you good morning.” She went to the door. It opened at her knock, and Harry caught a glimpse of Livia Lacey as she opened the door to let in her friend and the child.

We are all close friends.
A seeming non sequitur, he thought, but it wasn't. It was an oblique suggestion. If he wanted access to the house, he needed first to come to terms with Viscountess Dagenham.

Well, he'd always relished a challenge.

He strode across the street, back to the garden.

Cornelia heard the scrunch of feet on the gravel path that led through the privet hedge to the center of the garden. She was sitting on a stone bench to one side of the path and didn't look up from her scrutiny of her lapful of acorn cups and smooth brown conkers that Stevie and Susannah had gathered. She didn't need to look up. She knew exactly who was standing a few feet away.

Why has he come back? Not for another round of incivilities surely?
She was actually getting rather tired of them herself.

“Lady Dagenham?” It was softly spoken.

“Lord Bonham?” She polished a conker with her handkerchief. “There you are, Susannah.” She gave the nut to the child, and only then did she look across at the viscount.

For a moment they studied each other in silence, almost as if they were seeing each other properly for the first time, and, indeed, Cornelia felt that from her point of view that was the case. On their previous meetings, her impression of the man ahd been obscured by a fog of antagonism. She had thought him humorless and cold. Now she noticed with something of a shock that Aurelia had been right. When he smiled, his mouth had a rather delightfully humorous curve to it. And his green eyes, although grave at present, were not as stony as she remembered them.

Harry, for his part, was also revising his opinion of Lady Dagenham's personal charms. He had thought her cold, arrogant, and unfeminine compared with the other two women. But now he was not so sure. Without the angry glitter that he was used to, her blue eyes were more shrewd than shrewish, and her mouth, when it wasn't set in an uncompromising line, was both full and well shaped. She wore her hair caught up in a loose and slightly disordered knot, and the escaping tendrils seemed to accentuate that buttery honey color that he'd noticed before.

“We appear to have got off on the wrong foot,” he said.

“I wouldn't dispute that, sir,” she responded, scooping the nuts into her handkerchief as she rose slowly to her feet.

“Well, at least we can agree on something.” His eyes became a little less grave, and the smile remained on his mouth. “But I confess I'm at something of a loss to know how it happened.”

Cornelia looked at him in astonishment. “You're what? My dear sir, I cannot believe you would be so disingenuous.”

He held up his hands in protest. “Wait a minute. Let's not start again. Let us—”

He was interrupted by a voice from behind. “Lady Nell, it's time for Lady Susannah's nap. They've both been out long enough in the cold.” Linton came down the path towards them, Daisy hurrying to keep up.

“Very well, Linton,” Cornelia said. “Come, Stevie, Susannah…it's time to go in…Daisy, could you carry their treasure, please?” She gave the folded handkerchief to the nursemaid.

“Mercy, child, look at your socks,” Linton exclaimed. “And those stains on your shirt. What have you been doing, Lord Stevie?” She addressed the child, but her accusing gaze was on his mother.

Cornelia's smile was contrite. “We were playing with the ball, Linton. But a little dirt doesn't hurt.”

“How we're to get those stains off, I don't know,” Linton grumbled, unappeased. “In that house…with no laundry maids, hardly any hot water. I don't know what's to be done.” She tutted as she took Stevie's hand. “Come along then, both of you.”

Her own children were no more inclined to question Linton's edicts than their mother and went off without protest.

“Oh, dear,” Cornelia said, for a moment forgetting who she was talking to. “I'm in her bad books again. I'll have to find some way to mollify her.”

“Rules the nursery with an iron hand, does she?” Harry asked, amused by the viscountess's discomfiture. She looked as guilty as a child.

Cornelia flushed a little at this inadvertent intimacy. “She was my own nurse,” she offered in curt explanation. “Excuse me, Lord Bonham.” She made a move to follow the nursery party from the garden.

Harry spoke swiftly, “Please don't go just yet. I'd like to see if we could get onto the right foot.”

She paused, folding her arms as she drew her woolen shawl tighter around her. “I don't really see the point, viscount.”

He regarded her thoughtfully. She was such a striking woman, despite the unfashionably plain round gown of dark blue worsted and a shawl that was clearly designed for warmth and comfort rather than elegance. She had regained her quiet assurance and stood now considering him, her head tilted slightly atop a neck that could only be described as swanlike.

“Don't you, ma'am?” he responded gently. “I find that I do.”

“Ah.” Cornelia couldn't come up with a more expansive response to this declaration. She was beginning to wonder if maybe she did see the point. The man intrigued her in some way that she couldn't put a finger on.

He proffered an arm clad in dark gray twill. “Will you take a stroll around the garden?”

She took the arm with a faint inclination of her head and waited with considerable interest for him to begin.

He began rather off the point.
“Nell,”
he said in a musing tone.

“Cornelia,” she responded a touch sharply. “And I don't believe we have progressed to first names, Lord Bonham.”

“No…no,” he agreed. “But I was trying it out.”

Cornelia decided to ignore this. “If you hope to persuade Livia to sell you the house, Lord Bonham, I can save you the time and trouble. She is not interested in selling.”

“So you said.” He nodded agreeably, as if the statement caused him no particular dismay.

“So what exactly is the point of this walk?” she asked, when it seemed as if he was going to remain silent for the length of the circuit.

“I don't like situations I don't understand. And I am at a loss to understand how I have deserved your incivility, Lady Dagenham,” he stated roundly.

“My good woman,”
Cornelia murmured softly. “An infelicitous expression under any circumstances, I'm sure you'll agree, Lord Bonham.”

He stopped on the path and turned to look at her. “If that's all, then I apologize unreservedly, and promise never to let such an infelicitous expression cross my lips again.” He smiled. “Will that do, ma'am?”