Amanda Scott (23 page)

“If you do not want to experience the full force of my temper,” he said severely, “do not persist in this nonsense. To pretend to have no notion why I said I can’t go to Swainswick is doing it up too brown when I’ve told you I know you wrote that damned letter warning me of the Regent’s visit.”

“The Regent? Coming here! But why? I thought—”

“So help me—Yes, Shields, what is it?” he snapped when the door opened to admit his butler. At the sight of a second man, following closely behind him and wearing dark-blue livery trimmed with gold lace, Sydney put up his quizzing glass and said, “I believe I gave orders that I was not to be disturbed.”

“Yes, sir,” the butler replied, adding in his stateliest tone, “but this man is a royal equerry, sir, and he has orders to see his message delivered into your hands.”

Sydney glanced suspiciously at Carolyn, but her attention was fixed upon the visitor. Surely, he thought, if this was more of her mischief, she would be watching for his reaction. Doubt assailed him. The equerry’s livery was correct right down to the gold-filigree buckles on his black shoes, details that Sydney doubted Carolyn would remember from her few brief contacts with the royal family. Lowering his glass, he silently extended his hand to take the message.

Opening it, he scanned it rapidly, glanced at the equerry, then back at the letter. The second time, he read more carefully, realizing at last that there could be no doubt of its authenticity. Looking ruefully at Carolyn, he murmured, “I owe you an apology. Shields, we are to prepare for a royal visit on Boxing Day. Oh, and Lord and Lady Skipton and their children will be spending Christmas here, and no doubt a few days before and after. See to those arrangements as well, will you?”

“Certainly, sir.” The butler bowed and left the room.

Sydney turned to the equerry. “I received formal notice of your master’s intent this morning. I am surprised to receive another message so soon as this.”

The equerry nodded. “His royal highness desired that you have plenty of time to change any plans that might conflict with his, sir, and so he sent formal word at once by last night’s post. But wanting to assure himself that you knew precisely what it is he hopes to accomplish here, he took care to send a more personal message by hand. Will you wish to write a reply, sir?”

“Yes, of course. I shall inform his highness that he is right welcome and assure him we will do our best to accommodate him in every way. There is no need for you to rush off with it tonight, though. My people will give you dinner and put you up. I daresay you will make better time after a night’s rest.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” He bowed and left the room.

Sydney turned to Carolyn. “You are entitled to a sincere apology, I believe, for I thought you sent the first letter and ought to have believed you when you denied it, but after the last trick you played me, it was only too easy to doubt you.”

She colored. “’Tis I who should apologize, sir, for acting on a childish impulse, which I have sincerely regretted and dared hope you would not mention. I daresay the mischief came out of having foolishly resolved after our visit to Oatlands to behave as a model of propriety, then failing miserably in the attempt.”

“Good Lord, Caro,” he exclaimed, amused, “you ought never to have made such a resolution!”

“No,” she agreed with a sudden impish grin, “I know. Fatal! I thought I had outgrown that childish need to do that which I have been forbidden to do, but you see how it is, sir, even when I myself do the forbidding. I am a sad case. But I collect we truly must expect the Regent to arrive the day after Christmas.”

“We do. It seems that he wishes to examine some of the
objets d’arts
that Sir Percival Melvin means to sell, and fears that if it becomes widely known that they are for sale, the price will be driven up. He must still be concerned with his public image if he means to concern himself with price,” he added, smiling. “I am sure certain members of Parliament, at least, will be pleased to learn of it. Nonetheless, since he wishes to have my opinion on the authenticity of the items, and since Melvin’s house lies in Queen Square, he is coming to Bath.”

“But surely, he might save himself a trip by having you act as his agent,” Carolyn pointed out.

“He has a second motive,” Sydney admitted, “which he did not wish to trust to the Royal Mail, believing, probably with reason, that some of the carriers are hand in glove with the newspapers. In any case, he writes that he hopes to gain a respite from the constant public speculation about him. Not only has Cumberland continued to follow him from pillar to post, harassing him to give up his Whig friends in favor of the Tories, but even his own mother is pricking at him. It appears that his sisters desire to have their own residence, a scheme that Prinny approves but the Queen abhors, and since he is still not entirely recovered from the illness that followed hard upon his injury, he says he cannot tolerate all the brangling. In other words, my dear, Prinny is running away, and he wishes to find sanctuary in this house. I cannot deny him that, can I, however much I might wish him, Skipton, and the rest of them at Jericho.”

“Well,” Carolyn said with a sigh, “you would not be out of line in laying the blame for this at my door. If I had not behaved like a noddy at Oatlands, his highness would have no need now to escape public speculation. All those rumors are flying about because of what happened in the grotto, and nothing at all would have happened if I had not managed to draw the attention of the odious Duke of Cumberland.”

Sydney protested. “Though you did not behave with wisdom, my dear, that was no excuse for Cumberland’s behavior, nor is it reason now to blame yourself for the Regent’s plight. No, listen to me,” he added, taking her gently by the shoulders and giving her a shake when she looked as though she would debate the matter. “You are not to hold yourself responsible for any of this. Cumberland and Prinny have been at odds since they were children, so their mutual animosity can have nothing to do with you. Cumberland has always coveted the throne, and it is that fact above all others that makes Prinny fret and stew about his own safety. He sees threats behind every bush and fears Cumberland above all others, because he knows Cumberland or his minions to be capable of any dastardly deed.”

“You are right, of course, but I—”

He shook her again, less gently. “I tell you, you did nothing to warrant what Cumberland attempted to do. Rumors would fly in any event, for the royal family live in the public eye and men will always speculate about them, though it must drive many of them to distraction. Prinny is the most at risk, of course, not only because of his profligate ways but because he is the heir. That fact also makes him the greatest target.”

She was gazing at the top button of his waistcoat now. “You know, Sydney, you have never said anything about what happened that day in the grotto. I know you were angry with me. You never said so, of course, but I could see it all the same.”

He was quiet for a long moment, then said, evenly, “I was never angry with you, so you may put that thought straight out of your head. Do you understand me?” When she met his gaze with a searching look, then sighed at last and nodded, he said, “Good, then we may be comfortable again, so sit down and help me think of what must be done before the royal party arrives. My people are capable, but they have never entertained royalty before.”

“Well, I have not done so either,” she pointed out, sitting in a chair near his desk.

“No, but you have visited houses where royalty has been entertained, as I have. Between us, surely we can think of certain things that were done primarily to accommodate them.”

“Not at Oatlands,” she said. “The service there was nothing special, certainly, and it is a royal house.”

“True,” he agreed, smiling, “but I do not think we can be as casual as the Duke and Duchess of York. The Regent will expect more at Bathwick Hill House, and we will not disappoint him.”

Glad to be able to help him, Carolyn allowed him to draw her into a discussion of his plans, but by the time she retired that night, her thoughts had begun tumbling over themselves in her head until she did not know what she was thinking. Sydney, whom she had thought she knew well, was beginning to seem like a stranger to her, and she was even more rapidly coming to believe she knew herself no better.

To have flirted with him when she believed him impervious to her wiles had seemed safe and even pleasant until his apparently impenetrable calm had stimulated her to behave in an unseemly manner, resulting in the unfortunate events at Oatlands. Then, after their return to Bathwick Hill, when she had exerted herself to behave impeccably, she had ended by doing something more reprehensible than all the rest, and childish to boot. Why, she wondered, did she do such things? What on earth was wrong with her, that she must continually appear to be seeking in Sydney’s responses some reflection of her own self worth?

D
ECIDING AT LAST THAT
she must cease to look to Sydney for approval and begin to act in a manner more properly befitting an adult female, Carolyn began the following morning by throwing herself into the preparations for the Christmas visitors, thus giving herself no more time to brood. Indeed, in the days that followed with all the preparations necessary to house the party from Swainswick as well as a royal entourage, there was no time to spare for anyone, except of course the dowager, whose greatest contribution to all the activity was her consistent criticism of any suggestion that she could not mistake for her own, and her casual, if misguided, assumption that any visitor to Bathwick Hill House must be so gratified to find himself there that he would notice nothing amiss. She failed to understand why the upheaval should result in inconvenience to herself or any change in either Miss Pucklington’s or Carolyn’s habits.

“I have been told,” she informed them both on an occasion when Miss Pucklington had so far forgotten her duty to her benefactress as to offer to assist the housekeeper with a final check of the arrangements being made for the royal party, “that it is well known of the Prince Regent that wherever he goes, although he expects such attention and respect as he thinks is due to him, when this has been shown, he dispenses with any such continuance of it as would affect the comfort of those about him. It is not so with others of the royal family, who as I know from my own experience, delight in subjecting the persons where they visit to such tedious attention to ceremonious personal respect as must make everyone uncomfortable. We need not concern ourselves with that, however, since his highness comes alone to us, and therefore Mrs. Shields can very well attend to the details of his comfort without your assistance. You may fetch my shawl now, Judith, for it has become a trifle chilly.”

Miss Pucklington did not have the temerity to debate the matter, nor did Mrs. Shields object to seeing to such details as pertained to the royal entourage; however, as she had explained apologetically to Carolyn, she had had little experience in providing for a nursery party and would not turn down assistance in that regard from any quarter. Carolyn, having agreed to do what she could, saw no reason to explain her decision to Lady Skipton and avoided having to do so by the simple expedient of not telling her anything about it.

By the time Lord Skipton ushered his family into the drawing room, two days before Christmas, she had arranged for two experienced nursery maids to be added to Sydney’s staff, and had, she hoped, arranged a sufficient number of activities to amuse the children, and to keep them away from Sydney’s treasures if not altogether out of his way.

Had she been asked for her opinion, she would have said she did not dislike Lord Skipton’s family. Indeed, though she had small opinion of his lordship, a stout man nearly ten years Sydney’s senior, who took his duties as baron and landowner rather too seriously for her taste, she rather liked Matilda and was frequently amused by the children. Though she did not care for Nurse Helmer and could not look forward to such disputes as might be expected to arise between Matilda and the dowager, for a time she basked in the hope that the three of them would contrive to be as stiffly polite to one another as they had been before the estrangement. However, she realized the moment the family entered the drawing room that her hope had been a vain one.

Matilda, a tall, thin woman with straw-colored hair and a sallow complexion, having bent to kiss the dowager’s cheek, stepped back to allow each of her three children to do likewise, saying astringently, “I cannot think what you are about, Mother Skipton, to have allowed the gardeners to leave all those shaggy seed pods on the rhododendrons lining the drive. My own dear Feathers would have lopped them off weeks ago and would have raised the mulch as well. I shall ask him if he has a cousin or some such nearby who can see to the gardens properly for you. Stephen, make your bow correctly. Do not merely bob your head in that unmannerly way to your grandmama. She will think you to have been raised in a back slum!”

The dowager, raising her cheek to one supposedly adored grandson while nudging the other out of her line of sight and doing her best at the same time to deter a toddling, tow-headed granddaughter determined to climb into her lap, raised her eyebrows and said to Matilda, “Your Feathers does well enough in his own way, I suppose, though he is certainly not as capable as our Murphy was before Skipton pensioned him off. I believe Feathers was only an undergardener then. And since, here at Bathwick Hill House, dear Sydney employs a head gardener, a second gardener, and no fewer than fourteen gardeners’ boys—”

“Surely not so many as that, Mama,” Sydney said, entering the room just then to greet the arrivals. “Well met, Basil. Matilda, are you reorganizing my staff? I should have thought you would require at least a day or so to look the place over before attending to that onerous chore.”

Watching as he shook Skipton’s hand, Matilda showed not the least sign of discomposure. “I daresay you wish I had waited to speak my mind,” she said, “but I cannot abide slovenliness, and your garden needs attention.”