Barbara Metzger (10 page)

If she only knew ...

Courtney turned his attention to the other boxes, and grew more annoyed when he saw all the lorgnettes and quizzing glasses aimed in their direction. ‘Twould seem that his lordship needed more getting used to public scrutiny than Kitty did. Deuce take it, though, every pair of opera glasses meant another letter to his mother in Trowbridge. That was inevitable. Courtney was surprised he hadn’t heard from Lady Chase already, after her coterie of spies informed her he was squiring a Diamond about Town this week.

Which reminded him, blast, that Kitty should have jewels at her throat, dangling from her ears, and encircling her slender wrist.

“No, my lord,” she’d firmly stated. “I shall not accept jewelry from you. The clothes are a necessary adjunct to our pretense, and the salary, of course, is part of the bargain. Jewels are not.”

“Would you accept a loan?”

“What, your family heirlooms? Now that would put the cat among the pigeons, my lord.”

And have his mother back from Trowbridge before the last snowflake melted. Still, he wasn’t pleased. “It will make me look like a nip-cheese.”

“Diamonds will make me look like a whore.”

So Courtney relented, pleased that under all the sweetness, Miss Partland still had backbone. She would need it to face the world.

No, he thought, she needed her cloak, for Nanny had been right. Miss Kathlyn did not require a diamond to set off her looks. The purity of her skin, the rise of her breasts above the neckline, the sharp valley between them, drew a man’s eye like no jewel ever could. Blast, Courtney wished she had on her brown sack dress, buttoned to the neck.

There was a young Tulip in yellow pantaloons in the pit who, raised on his equally castaway friends’ shoulders, began tossing roses in Kitty’s direction. Soon all the striplings in the cheap seats were throwing flowers and their calling cards at the viscount’s box, loudly begging for a smile, her name, her address. They all missed, to everyone’s hilarity but Courtney’s. He raised her gloved hand to his lips, in plain sight. “Ignore them,” the viscount told her.

“Of course, my lord, they’re only boys with high spirits. They mean nothing by their antics.”

Not even a schoolmistress from Cheshire could be that unaware. Courtney groaned and drew his chair closer to hers, then placed his arm on her shoulder, so her side was pressed against his.

Kathlyn looked up, startled. “My lord?”

He leaned even closer, whispering in her ear in a lover-like manner. “Mine,” was all he said.

Kathlyn laughed. Of course. He was acting the smitten beau. And he was very good at it.

Her laughter pleased him. It wasn’t the giggle or twitter that passed for humor among the debutante set, nor the restrained simper of an older woman, just sheer, sweet happiness. She should laugh like that for the rest of her life. Remembering the pinch-faced, sour-visaged, acid-tongued hag whom he’d rescued from the snow, Courtney vowed she’d never be anyone’s drudge again. He’d give her a marriage portion if he could, but that would never do. His dowering an unrelated female was bound to come out, then where would she be? On the streets for real. Besides, the clerks and farmers she was like to wed were too far beneath her. Wealthy merchants only wanted titled daughters of the aristocracy for their sons, so their grandchildren could be accepted where they themselves never were.

No, Miss Partland would do better with that school of her own, he thought, not acknowledging how relieved he was to eliminate a husband from Kitty’s future. She was wonderful with Nanny’s grandchildren, and had even begun teaching Lizzie to read. Nanny adored her, and he himself found her intelligent and capable and steady. Kitty was a good sport, too, taking the catcalls and the ogling better than he was, ignoring them in favor of the glittering surroundings. Courtney was praying for the blasted opera to begin. A strong-lunged, love-stricken soprano never held more appeal.

At the first intermission, Courtney escorted Kitty out of their box and down the corridor to get some air and a lemonade. Scores of young gentlemen lined the hall and the stairs, waiting for just such an opportunity to meet Chase’s new dasher. Rather than stop to talk to the rattlepates, Courtney held Kitty close by his side and whispered to her—about the opera, but the loiterers were not to know that. As the viscount planned, they thought he was whispering sweet words of love. He intercepted smirks, winks, and a few fingers laid alongside noses.

A handful of acquaintances were too determined to be introduced for Chase to ignore. When one of these old school chums or former fellow officers planted himself in their path, Courtney had no option but to present his companion, Miss Kitty Parke. He held her hand in his, though, so none of the bounders could play the gallant by slobbering over it. Then he quickly hurried her away, claiming a burning thirst, before the lascivious lowlifes could shower Kitty with Spanish coin or personal questions. That heavy-handed flattery could only be embarrassing for a girl not used to it, and any inquiry more pointed than her opinion of the opera was an invasion of her privacy, too dangerous to their masquerade, and a scoundrel’s strategy.

Courtney knew how these basket-scramblers operated:

they showed interest in the latest comet, disdaining the female on their arm. They feigned fascination with the new dazzler’s person, swearing entrancement by her beauty, when all they wanted was to pry her away from her current protector. The man with the most desirable mistress, the man whose mistress was desired by the most men, rather, was considered a hero in this benighted society. To them it was all a game. Well, Kitty was no pawn. She was under contract to him, by Jupiter. And when Courtney was done playacting his rake’s role, she was
not
going to be handed around from man to man like a horse on the block at Tattersall’s. He wasn’t sacrificing her virtue to protect his own.

On the other hand, a chap didn’t call out a close friend for staring at his mistress’s bosom. Hell and damnation! Courtney gulped down his lemonade, then rushed Kitty back to their seats in his blessedly empty box.

* * * *

At the next intermission, Courtney was determined to stay in the box, even should Kitty profess a parched throat. Then Algie came to visit. How could the viscount tell his oldest friend to go to the devil?

Lord Algernon Lowe wouldn’t have listened anyway, he was too busy pumping Kathlyn’s hand up and down, slapping Courtney on the back, and grinning. “I knew you wouldn’t let the home team down, old man. Wagered Woodbury a pony on it, I did. But you sly dog, you, keeping such a treasure under wraps. Can’t blame you, of course. The foxes are already slavering at the henhouse, heh heh.”

Before Algie could embarrass them all any further, Courtney asked, “Is Woodbury with you?” Algie and Vernon Woodbury, Bart., were nearly inseparable members of the Corinthian set.

Algie took his eyes off Kathlyn barely long enough to answer. “No, I’m here with the family, more’s the pity. Woody ain’t in the petticoat line.” Noting Kathlyn’s confusion, Algie pointed to a nearby box where three women sat, two girls in white gowns and an older lady in puce, with a magenta turban sporting two ostrich feathers. “Five sisters, don’t you know.”

“Good grief, Algie, how did you get escort duty?” Lord Lowe was more often found on the hunting field than on the dance floor.

“Pater stayed on in Kent to oversee some improvements.” He grimaced. “Promised to be here for the Season so I won’t have to do the pretty at all those balls and things. Mama and the girls came early to get a start on their shopping. Have to get a jump on the other debs, don’t you know.”

“Which sister is being brought out this year?”

“The middle two. Mama decided to fire ‘em off together and get it over with. Where she hopes to find two gudgeons to bring up to scratch is beyond me.”

Kathlyn smiled at the tall, thin man dressed to the nines—but not as elegantly as Lord Chase. “I am sure they are delightful girls. Lord Lowe.”

He nodded approvingly. “And I’m sure you are too polite to say otherwise, Miss Parke. Stands to reason old Court wouldn’t be squiring an antidote and wouldn’t be taking a common trollop to his b— Ouch.”

“Your sisters?” Lord Chase hinted while Algie rubbed his shin.

“Two of the silliest geese ever let off the farm, I swear, Miss Parke. One’s a hoyden, t’other’s a flirt. Ain’t that true, Court? You haven’t seen them in a while, but I promise they ain’t improved with age.”

“I’m sure they’ve grown out of their freckles and foibles, Algie. They cannot be any sillier than the rest of the chits at Almack’s.”

“And I’m sure they aren’t silly at all, my lord,” Kathlyn chided, “only young. I’d like to meet them.” Silence met her last remark. Algie’s face grew red, then white. His mouth opened and shut like a trout’s, out of water. Lord Chase cleared his throat, then checked his watch. “Intermission’s about over, Algie. Time you toddled back to your seat.”

Kathlyn knew she’d said something dreadful to halt the pleasantries, but she didn’t know what until she repeated her last comments in her own mind. Of course. A man didn’t introduce a courtesan to his young, impressionable sisters; immoral behavior might be contagious. Scarlet-faced, Kathlyn stuttered, “I... I meant I should like to meet their ... their modiste. Their gowns look quite elegant.”

A relieved Algie swept her a handsome leg and departed.

When he was gone, Kathlyn made much of unfolding her fan and wafting it about. The fan was a pretty affair of blue silk over ivory spokes, with a pair of picnicking lovers depicted on one side. It did not create enough of a breeze to cool her burning cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” she finally managed to say. “I should have known better.”

“No, the fault was mine.” He took the fan from her and gently waved it, meanwhile stroking her almost bare shoulder. “I should have warned you. The ton has a thousand foolish edicts handed down by old harridans who did much worse in their lifetimes. I never thought about such situations. Miss— Kitty, because I do not think of you in those terms.”

Of course he didn’t, but everyone else did, it seemed. “They all know I’m your... That is, I’m supposed to be your mistress?”

He shrugged. “You have no chaperone. There is no other lady in the box. We arrived alone in my carriage. That’s enough for the social world to draw conclusions.”

“Conclusions which we were aiming to encourage, weren’t we?” she asked brightly, so he could not see her hurt.

Courtney was feeling regrets, too, though, for he brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers. “On the inside, you are more a lady than any of them. That’s what’s important.”

Chapter Eleven

“Not more snow?” Snowflakes were settling on Kathlyn’s cloak while she and Courtney waited outside the opera for their carriage to be brought ‘round. “I so wanted to see the new steam engine tomorrow.”

“Perhaps this is only a flurry. Let’s stand there, under the overhang.”

Others had the same idea. Soon quite a crowd was pressed into the narrow protected area. Of the happy theater-goers, some gentlemen were made known to Kathlyn, others not. Of the ones Courtney did present, he also introduced some of their female companions, some not. Of the women, Kathlyn was beginning to note the difference in the ones whose names Lord Chase gave: the harsher look, the coarser accents, the first-name familiarity, and a bit of face paint here and there streaking in the wet falling snow. More definitively, the hired ladies wore more jewelry than the “real” ladies. Kathlyn’s bare throat pleased her better than any of the gaudy necklaces she saw.

A gentleman with his arm around a red-haired girl invited the viscount and Kitty to join them at the Pulteney for a late supper. Two others seconded the invite.

Courtney had been planning on taking Kitty there for dinner, telling himself they had to plan their costumes for the Cyprians’ Ball. Mainly he hadn’t tired of looking at her yet. Now he couldn’t take her there, not to have her by himself, without seeming standoffish. And the evening had been harrowing enough, what with every lecher trying to see through Kitty’s gown. The ball was unavoidable, but Courtney had never meant to expose his misplaced governess to more vulgarity than necessary. The language at these late dinners could become quite warm, not meant for tender ears, and the behavior rowdier still, especially if a private parlor was hired.

“Sorry,” he said, “we have other plans.” It might have been better to accept, then go on their way after a toast or two, before the party grew uninhibited. Now he had to put up with loud guffaws and ribald comments about those “other plans.” Thank goodness, Courtney thought, Kitty wouldn’t understand the half of them.

The boisterous, cheerful crowd moved off, settling into two carriages, the females atop the men’s laps so they’d all fit.

“Shameless,” declared a woman behind Courtney.

He turned to see which old harridan was so offended. Surprisingly, it wasn’t one of his mother’s cronies at all. “Lady Fostwick, my lord.” Courtney made a polite bow and turned back.

Lady Fostwick, nee Adelina Marlowe, wasn’t letting the viscount off that easily. She jerked her head in Kathlyn’s direction, snapping an egret feather from her headpiece into her husband’s left eye. “I see your lofty principles barely lasted as long as the engagement, sirrah,” she sniped.

Courtney bent his head in her husband’s direction. “And I see your heartbreak lasted almost until the next Venetian breakfast, my lady.”

Refusing to let Courtney think she still pined for his golden curls, dimpled cheeks, or forty thousand a year, Adelina tittered. “La, sir, heartbreak? What did hearts ever have to do with such arrangements?”

“What, indeed?” Lord Chase glanced at Fostwick, Adelina’s senior by at least thirty years, in his old-fashioned bag wig, with snuff stains dribbled down his shirtfront. “My belated congratulations, my lord. Excuse me for not offering them sooner, but I was on the Peninsula. Word of your marriage did not arrive until too many months were passed.”

“Quite, quite. Lucky man, eh?”