Amanda Scott (19 page)

While Lord Reston attempted in his grave way to explain to his wife that he had not the slightest intention of scolding anyone, Lady Greyfalcon looked at Sylvia with a guilty grimace, showing that she understood how close she had come to speaking of the book and the would-be assailant, both matters that her companion would as lief leave unmentioned. Thus, when Joan had allowed herself to be placated, Sylvia was able to continue their conversation without concern for her hostess’s loose tongue. She could not, however, be easy some twenty minutes later when she looked up to see that Greyfalcon himself had entered the shop.

By that time, Lady Ermintrude had wandered off with one of her friends, and Sylvia and Joan had collected quite a number of young men, for Joan was determined to bring Sylvia to the notice of as many eligible gentlemen as possible, as quickly as possible. Sylvia had been listening to one of these expounding upon the merits of several examples of the latest furniture styles. She didn’t have the faintest idea whether he knew anything about the subject, but he had a charming smile and a manner that was flattering without being in the least obsequious. She had just rewarded him with an appreciative smile when she looked up to see Greyfalcon entering, his gaze fixed upon her face, his countenance arranged in a particularly ominous frown.

There were two other gentlemen with him, and when he approached and greeted the members of their group, one of these, an exquisitely attired, carroty-haired gentleman, demanded an introduction. Since Sylvia recognized him immediately as one of Greyfalcon’s erstwhile companions at the card table in Brooks’s Subscription Room, she was hard-pressed to play her part in the ensuing amenities with her usual grace.

“May I present the Honorable George Lacey?” Greyfalcon said carelessly. “My mother, Lord and Lady Reston, and Miss Jensen-Graham. These other gentlemen you no doubt already know. Make your bow, George, and then take yourself off like a good fellow. I wish to speak with Miss Jensen-Graham privately.”

“Then take your place in line, laddie,” recommended the insouciant Lacey. “Your servant, Miss Jensen-Graham. Will you be so kind as to point out which of these elegant prints I must most admire? Save time, don’t you know.”

Sylvia liked Mr. Lacey and she had no wish to be private with Greyfalcon when he looked at her with that particular expression on his face. She had no idea what she might have done to put it there, but it put her most forcibly in mind of the discussions they had had in his bookroom. Therefore, assured by Lacey’s manner that he had not the faintest recollection of having laid eyes upon her before, she allowed him to carry her off to look at Mr. Ackermann’s prints. And when another of the gentlemen so recently met offered to fetch her some lemonade and cakes from the refreshment table set out at the end of the shop, only to be challenged by several others who wished to perform the same service, she had not the least reservation about agreeing to go with them en masse.

It was not until one of the gentlemen mentioned the time that she realized she had not made any arrangement with Joan for the rest of the evening, and it was some time past the hour allotted by Lady Greyfalcon to the reception. In the meantime the crowd had grown, so she could no longer simply look across the room to find her party. Designating Mr. Lacey as her escort, she insisted that he take her back to her hostess.

“For I am persuaded she must be ready to depart, and although I expect to go on with Lady Joan, it is only polite to wish Lady Greyfalcon good night before she leaves. Can you see where they are? Being short is quite a disadvantage in a crush like this one.”

Flattered, for he was not very tall himself, Lacey craned his neck to peer over the shoulders and heads of those nearest them. “I see Greyfalcon,” he said at last. “I daresay the others are still with him.”

Sylvia was by no means so sure of this, but she allowed him to guide her through the crowd to his lordship’s side. There was no sign of his mama or the others.

“Mama is over there in a deep converse with Lady Grazenby, whom she assures me was quite her bosom bow when they were girls, and Reston has taken his ladies on to some rout or other,” Greyfalcon explained in answer to her query.

“But I was to have gone with them,” Sylvia protested.

“I decided that you would be the better for an early night,” he replied easily, “and Reston agreed with me. I have already called for Mama’s carriage.”

Lacey spoke up before Sylvia could vent her indignation at such cavalier treatment. “I should consider it an honor, Miss Jensen-Graham, if you and her ladyship would accept my escort to Curzon Street. No doubt you have your coachman, but in my experience, coachmen are elderly and it is far better for ladies to be properly escorted by a gentleman who is capable of protecting them.”

“And so they shall be, Lacey,” said his lordship gently. “I will escort my mother and her guest, thank you.”

“But I thought you was merely stopping by this place on your way to Brooks’s, Fran. Dash it, man, no need to go out of your way. I don’t mind a bit, assure you.”

“And I assure you,” said Greyfalcon, speaking in an even gentler tone than before, “that your services are no longer required. Good night, Lacey.”

Abashed at last, the younger man bowed and took his leave.

Greyfalcon took Sylvia’s elbow then, and moments later, without being altogether certain how he had managed it so quickly, she found herself inside the countess’s carriage, seated beside the countess and across from Greyfalcon, who scarcely waited for the door to be shut upon them before saying, “You ought not to encourage such rattles as Lacey to fawn over you like that, Sylvia.”

“Fawn over me! How dare you, sir! You have no call to say such things to me. I have not behaved improperly, and even if I had, you have no authority over me.”

“You are residing in my house, my girl. That gives me every authority.”

“Not when my father is also residing there, sir,” she responded tartly.

“Very true,” agreed the countess. “You cannot dispute that, Francis. Sylvia is answerable only to her father. You have overstepped yourself, my dear, and I think you must apologize.”

Fortunately, both Sylvia and the countess knew better than to expect him to comply with this suggestion. They also knew better than to attempt to tease him into a better mood. Thus, the rest of the journey to Curzon Street was accomplished in grim silence.

S
YLVIA’S NEW CLOTHES BEGAN
to arrive in Curzon Street by the end of that week, and by then, too, she had attracted enough gentlemen admirers to make her realize that her advanced age was not such a detraction to her popularity as she had feared it might be. Indeed, there seemed to be more gentlemen buzzing around her now than there had been during her first Season in London. When she mentioned this to her hostess, that lady chuckled delightedly.

“’Tis no wonder, child, for you are far more interesting now than you were then. You’d understand that for yourself if you would but listen to yourself speak. A girl in her first Season generally talks nothing but drivel. Indeed, if she were to talk anything else, she would be an oddity. No doubt you walked about with your eyes wide with astonishment, blushing at every remark addressed to you and talking the most unutterable nonsense. Now you talk like a sensible young woman.”

Sylvia shook her head. “That cannot be the case, ma’am, for I assure you I talk as much drivel now as the next person. Why, for that matter, have you ever tried to discuss the classics or the political situation with any gentleman other than my father?”

“I said ‘sensible,’ Sylvia, not bookish. I do hope you are not so foolish as to go about demanding to hear a gentleman’s opinion on something that he’s as like as not to have forgotten all about—that is, if he ever knew the least thing about it in the first place. I trust you have learned by now that gentlemen by and large are not interested in what you have to say for yourself so much as they are in what you have to say about them. They prefer, actually, that you listen to them rather than the other way about.”

“So long as I allow them to choose the topic on which they will discourse,” said Sylvia with an ironic nod.

“Exactly, and so long as you are aware of the fact that that topic will more often than not be the gentleman himself.” Lady Greyfalcon lifted a tortoiseshell-handled lorgnette, her latest affectation, and peered briefly at Sylvia. “You are amused, my dear, and I cannot condemn you for that, but I trust you do not allow such amusement to show when you are with any gentleman whose acquaintance you wish to cultivate.”

“Of course not, ma’am. Though I do wish,” she added thoughtfully, “that I might find someone to talk with occasionally who would not be offended if I should show amusement at something he has not said on purpose to amuse me. Someone with whom I might just be myself.”

“Goodness, you will never bring a man up to scratch with that attitude,” Lady Greyfalcon warned her. “Men are fragile creatures with fragile egos, and you must never, never speak to one without first weighing your words. Even more important, you must never, never laugh at one whose good opinion you wish to retain. He will never forgive you.”

Something in her ladyship’s tone made Sylvia change the subject rather abruptly at that point. It was as though Lady Greyfalcon had suddenly looked back at some hurtful incident or other in her own past and being with her while she did so was uncomfortable.

Sylvia’s evenings were filled with activity, and her days were no less so, for Lady Greyfalcon insisted upon her company as she paid and received calls, and Lady Joan made a point to include Sylvia in every invitation that she could without offending a hostess. And since Lady Joan’s hostesses had even less wish to offend her, Sylvia was generally included once it became known that Lady Joan wished it so. It began to seem as though Sylvia never had a spare minute to call her own from that time forth. If she thought to have an hour to herself to read a book, a footman chose that moment to announce a caller. And if she expected to get home early on a given night, that would be the very night that Joan had discovered at the last minute somewhere particularly amusing to take her.

One evening, at the opera, she espied Greyfalcon in a box opposite theirs, a pretty young woman in plunging décolletage beside him. He bowed, and Sylvia was surprised at the surge of anger that swept through her. Though she told herself that her reaction was due to the fact that the man was in mourning and ought not to be at the opera, she carefully refrained from looking at the woman again.

By Friday of her third week in London, she was exhausted but had decided that social life agreed with her. Late that afternoon, the Reston carriage deposited her upon the Greyfalcon House doorstep. Dusk had already fallen, and she glanced warily to the right and left as she stepped down from the carriage, grateful for the presence of Joan’s tall young footman and glad, too, to see a hefty young man in the Greyfalcon livery standing beside the steps. Even so, she started when another carriage clattered rapidly up behind the Reston carriage, its team being pulled to a plunging halt, its door flung open as though someone meant to leap out.

Looking at both footman and the Greyfalcon servant to reassure herself of their presence, Sylvia looked back to see who might be erupting from the other carriage, and let out a breath of relief when she saw Greyfalcon himself descending with his normal, casual grace.

Once upon the pavement, he smoothed his coat sleeve and nodded to his coachman. “Take it ’round, Franks. I shan’t need it tonight.” Then and only then did he seem to realize that Sylvia was standing on the flagway watching him. “May I escort you inside, Miss Jensen-Graham? You will catch a chill standing here.”

“Thank you, sir.” She looked at the footman. “You may go, Alfred. Tell her ladyship for me that … Or, no, that will not be necessary. I shall see her this evening.”

Greyfalcon cleared his throat impatiently.

She glanced up at him from beneath her thick lashes. “Do not let me keep you standing, sir. There is no need.”

“There is every need. I wish to speak to you.”

“In that case, I am yours to command, sir. Or if not that, precisely,” she added when his eyebrows rose mockingly, “at least I shall be pleased to hear whatever you might like to say to me.”

“No, you won’t. Come along.” He took her right hand and tucked it into the crook of his elbow, nodding to the liveried servant upon the doorstep. “Take yourself off, Jackson, and get some supper. You’ll not be needed here again tonight. Her ladyship intends to remain at home.”

“Very good, m’lord.”

“I do not intend to remain here, however, my lord,” Sylvia pointed out.

“That remains to be seen.”

“No, I am afraid it does not. My plans are settled, sir and the Reston carriage calls for me at eight.”

“This is not the place for discussion. Come inside.”

He might just as well have ordered her to go straight to his library, Sylvia thought. Really, she was becoming quite familiar with the place, considering that it was clearly a masculine sanctum. She made no demur, however, when he guided her toward the tall doors, barely allowing the footman time to get there first to open them, then dismissing the man with a curt nod before he had so much as opened his mouth to ask if anything further was required of him.

Sylvia walked toward the hearth, stripping off her gloves and reaching to untie her hat, a delicious confection of chip straw that dipped enticingly down over her left eye. It also, however, obscured her view of Greyfalcon’s face, and at the moment, she believed reading his expression was important.

He looked at her for a long moment, giving her the odd notion that he was somehow gathering his courage to speak his mind. When he did speak, however, his voice contained not the slightest note of doubt. Indeed, he sounded as dictatorial as he had sounded that first day at Brooks’s.

“You have been going the pace rather fiercely, have you not? One cannot turn around in this house without tripping over one or another of your admirers. I should think, Sylvia, that you would have rather more care of my mother’s health.”