Blossom Time (2 page)

“I want another kitten,” Sukey said.

“One of mine is snow white,” Harry said, directing his temptation at Sukey. “A pretty little ball of white fur that just fills the palm of your hand. I call her Snow Drop.”

“It would be a
her,”
Rosalind murmured.

“Oh, Roz, can I have her?” Sukey begged. “Can I have Snow Drop? I don’t have a white kitten.”

“Of course you can.” Harwell glinted a triumphant smile at Rosalind. “Your sister wouldn’t be so cruel as to deprive you of a snow white kitten.”

“Especially when she has already been deprived of the sugarplums she was promised,” Roz retorted. “Very well. I daresay there are plenty of mice in the barn to go around. But just one kitten, mind.”

“Sukey shall have her sugarplums as well—as soon as I get into the village.”

“Thanks, Harry,” Sukey said. Sandy went yelping after some new scent, with Sukey flying at his heels.

“Where is Sukey’s nanny?” Lord Harwell asked, when they were alone again.

“Miss Axelrod has accepted an offer of marriage.”

“Another spinster has accomplished the impossible. Marvelous how you old—older ladies can find someone to slip a set of manacles on.”

“And Miss Axelrod all of nineteen. It is really a wonder she had the strength to do it. She left us in May. It is no matter. She was really only a nursery maid. Sukey requires a governess. She will be six this month. Time to get her nose to the grindstone.”

Rosalind’s smile was tinged with sadness to think of Sukey growing up. Mrs. Lovelace had died giving birth to Sukey. At that time, Rosalind had taken over as mistress of Apple Hill, and as stand-in mother to Sukey. It had thrown Rosalind’s life into turmoil. At eighteen she had been betrothed to Sir Lyle Standish. The year of mourning had delayed the marriage. Before the year was over, Mr. Lovelace had died of a chill. The romance with Lyle might have withstood one year of mourning; it was not up to a second. She had regretfully given him his congé. Within the year, he had married the local schoolmistress.

Dick, her twin brother, had been about to go up to Oxford that autumn. Instead, he had been pitched, quite unprepared, into the role of master of a large estate. It had taken his and Rosalind’s combined efforts, with ample help from Harwell, to run the place.

Dick was not at all sorry to miss out on university. He was not bookish, but he was very good about estate matters. It was soon clear he had no head for ciphering, though. The keeping of the books and the management of the house fell to Rosalind. There hadn’t seemed to be much time to find another husband.

Dick had derived his comfort from riding, hunting, shooting, and those masculine activities of his class. He had recently found himself a lady and was engaged. Rosalind had struck up a friendship with the vicar and his wife and become active in church doings. Her solace, when she was alone, was reading, which soon led to trying her own hand at writing. She had always liked poetry and nature. She wrote about the beauty of the changing seasons. It was a diversion, something happy and peaceful to think about, to keep the blue devils at bay when she was alone.

Harwell, watching as these thoughts left a trace of sadness on her face, said, “Haven’t brought him up to scratch yet, eh?”

She jerked back to attention. “What? Oh, still harping on my imaginary beau? No, I was just thinking how quickly time passes.”

“Very true. Time flies when one is with a pretty lady. I am referring, of course, to Sukey,” he added mischievously, as a light flush colored her cheek. He rose and stretched his long arms. “I must be off for a word with my bailiff. I’ll bring the cat tomorrow.”

“Harry! You said kitten!”

“Right, the kitten. Snow Flake.”

“Snow
Drop,
you wretch! And she had better be pure white.”

“I’ll touch her up with talcum powder before I come,” he said, and slanting his curled beaver at a dashing angle over his right eye, he left, laughing.

* * * *

It was good to be back home. He wondered who Roz’s beau could be. She had worn a very sly face as she denied his existence, so of course, she had someone in her eye. Whoever he was, he was making a wise choice. Roz was a fine, levelheaded lady.

As he proceeded through the meadow toward the abbey, his thoughts turned to estate matters.

In London, Lord Brampton had alerted him that old Anglesey was giving up farming. Too old for it, and no son to carry on. Anglesey had a fine line of milchers. He would pick up a couple for breeding purposes. Pity Anglesey had never married.

It was time he began to keep an eye out for a wife himself, come to that. Maybe next Season would throw up a likely prospect.

Chapter Two

Rosalind’s heart gave a little leap when she was handed the post at breakfast the next morning. She recognized the spidery writing on her one letter. It was from Lord Sylvester. When she tore it open and read the note, her leaping heart plummeted.

“Good God! He’s coming here!” she exclaimed.

“Who? Uncle Ralph?” Dick asked, glancing up from his gammon and eggs. Dick and Rosalind were not usually taken for twins by strangers, but one could see at a glance they were related. They shared their late mama’s brown hair and tall build. In Dick, Mrs. Lovelace’s deep green eyes were faded to hazel, while his complexion was akin to a hazelnut from his outdoor activities. He was usually mistaken for Rosalind’s younger brother.

“He’s due for his annual holiday,” he continued. “Put him in the yellow suite, send up a case of claret, and you’ll never know he’s here.”

“Not Uncle Ralph! Lord Sylvester!”

“Who the deuce is Lord Sylvester? Oh, that magazine fellow who’s printed your poems? Jolly good. It will be nice for you to meet him in person.”

“No, it won’t, Dick. Have you forgotten he thinks I’m a man? You’ll have to pretend you’re Francis Lovelace. Will you do it?” She knew even as she spoke the words that Dick couldn’t fool a child, let alone a scholarly gentleman like Lord Sylvester. But who else was there to do it?

“A man? How can he think that?”

“I told you, I called myself Francis, with an
i.
You’ll have to be Francis—just for the visit. Don’t do much talking.”

“Me pose as a poet?” he cried in horror. “A man scribbling verse. I couldn’t do it. I’d be the laughingstock of the parish if it ever got about.”

“It won’t get about. And Lord Byron is hardly a laughingstock.”

“Your verses, m’dear sis, ain’t Byron’s. He don’t write the sort of rubbish you do about love and flowers and moonlight. He writes about Corsairs and such exciting stuff. Besides, this Sylvester fellow has already published the verses. The magazine is out. He can’t take it back.”

“He won’t publish any more if he knows I’m a lady.”

“That don’t seem fair,” Dick said, frowning. “When is he coming?” he added, with a smirk. She knew from his expression that he was thinking what a good jest it would be to lead Lord Sylvester on, behaving like a mincing, capering dandy.

“Today. This afternoon.”

“How long is he staying?”

“Only an hour or so, I should think. It is just a running visit. He mentions he is on his way home to Astonby to visit his family and will dart in to meet me. I shall ask him to tea.”

“Pity Uncle Ralph ain’t here. He can prose on for hours about iambic pentameters and sonnets and ballads. I’ll do it, but mind I can’t waste much time. I have to see my man of business in town today. You’d best show me what you’ve written again. One of the verses was about my apple trees, I recall. That reminds me, the pippins must be sprayed. I saw greenflies in the orchard yesterday.”

This speech was enough to tell Rosalind her brother wasn’t up to the job of fooling Lord Sylvester. “I wonder if I could fool him into thinking I’m a man if I wore trousers,” she said, frowning into her teacup.

“Gudgeon!” Dick said bluntly. “He’s a man, you’re a lady. You might bat your lashes at him. What do you think they’re for? And wear a decent gown, show a bit of skin. Gents like that. Feed him some of Cook’s cream tarts. I’ll serve my best claret. We’ll have him eating out of your hand.”

“I wonder if it would work,” she said. “He might be an elderly gentleman. He sounds very scholarly.”

“Dash it, he ain’t blind or dead, is he? It’s worth a try at least.”

As there was no one she could put forth as Francis Lovelace, she decided to do as Dick suggested, and try to flirt Lord Sylvester into accepting her as a female poet. She spoke to Cook about serving her finest tea, then darted abovestairs to refashion a gown that would give some suggestion of her female charms without making her blush. She also had her hair done up in papers and applied a strawberry mask to brighten her cheeks.

Rosalind was quite an adept with her needle. She chose her green sprigged muslin and lowered the neckline two inches. She took luncheon in the nursery with Sukey, as she did not wish to appear at the table with her hair in papers.

“Can I meet Sylvester?” Sukey asked, ladling a spoonful of mulligatawny into her mouth.

“You may make a brief visit, but you mustn’t call him Sylvester, Sukey. Call him Lord Sylvester, or milord.”

“I don’t call Harry Lord Harry.”

“Harry is a good friend. Actually you should call him Lord Harwell.”

Sukey paid no heed to this. “Can I have papers in my hair, Roz?”

“You don’t need them. Your hair is almost too curly already.”

“Harry didn’t bring my kitten,” Sukey said, slipping a slice of ham into her pinafore pocket for Sandy.

“He will, eventually.”

As soon as lunch was over, Rosalind bustled back to her bedchamber to fashion her toilette. At three o’clock she was sitting in state in the Green Saloon with a shawl wrapped around her shoulders to hide the daring top of her gown; her hair was artfully arranged in a loose knot of curls, with a rosebud stuck into it. She would remove the shawl if Lord Sylvester was younger than fifty, and if he seemed unhappy that she was a lady.

At a quarter after three, Dick said he could no longer delay his trip to town and left. When he returned an hour later, Lord Sylvester still had not arrived. Rosalind’s expression was tinged with ennui. The rosebud in her hair had begun to wilt.

“What, not here yet?” Dick asked. “He ain’t coming. Let us have our tea.”

“No, let us wait until four-thirty,” Rosalind parried.

Before the quarter hour was up, they heard a commotion out front, the pounding of hooves and rattle of wheels. Rosalind darted to the window for her first glimpse of Lord Sylvester. From his critique of her work, she expected to see an older, slightly dry scholar. The gentleman who stepped down from the crested carriage was a tall, slender young dandy with a posy attached to the top of his walking stick. The sun shone on blond curls that reminded her of Sukey. He looked to be nineteen or twenty years of age. He stood a moment, looking all around the park, examined the facade of the house, then threw out his arms and lifted his face to the sun.

“That can’t be Lord Sylvester!” she exclaimed.

Dick had gone to stand behind her. “There don’t seem to be anyone else stepping out of the rig,” he said. “He’s coming to the door. Must be him. Foppish-looking fellow, ain’t he?”

“Do you think so?” she asked in surprise. “I thought he looked charming.”

They rushed back to their seats and were apparently chatting unconcernedly when Lord Sylvester Staunton was announced. Dick spared a derisive glance at his mincing step, his tight-fitting jacket and cream buckskins. Nor did he much care to see a lady’s coiffure on a man, but the fellow was handsome enough and very gentlemanly.

Rosalind, gazing at his blond curls, was not reminded of Sukey this time, but of a Renaissance painting. She thought his smile was very sweet, and when he opened his lips, his voice was like music. Even when he lifted a quizzing glass to his eye and turned it slowly from Dick to her, she was not put off. The elegant way he curved his wrist brought a whiff of London to the provincial saloon.

“Madam,” he said, making a leg. Then he turned to Dick. “And you, sir, must be Francis Lovelace. May I say I am honored, deeply honored, to make your acquaintance.”

Dick made a jerky bow and looked uncomfortable. “Mutual, I’m sure. Come in, Lord Sylvester. Have a seat. My sister Rosalind was just about to call for tea. Perhaps a glass of wine first. A dry business, driving.” He shouted to Rucker for the tea, then poured the wine and went to the sofa.

Lord Sylvester glided like a zephyr across the saloon and perched daintily on the corner of the sofa nearest to Dick. “Everyone is raving about your poetry, Mr. Lovelace. Such charming imagery, such lyric grace,” he said, accepting the claret. A sip told him it was an excellent vintage. “I feel quite like an explorer discovering a new continent. Like stout Cortez, silent upon his peak in Darien staring at the Pacific. Only it should have been Balboa, of course. Poor Keats. But then he is a product of the bluecoat school, you must know, not Eton or Harrow. I lay the blame in Leigh Hunt’s dish. He ought to have caught the error.”

Dick stared at the man as if he had suddenly begun to spout Greek. He looked at Rosalind, frowned, and said to Lord Sylvester, “What error?”

“I am referring to Keats’s poem in the
Examiner
last December. Why, it ought to have been Balboa. He discovered the Pacific Ocean.”

“Serves him right for putting history into a poem. Not the place for it in my opinion. It’s bad enough in prose, but to lumber poetry with it!”

Lord Staunton had come expecting to find a provincial with effete pretentions, and was surprised to discover what he immediately recognized as an unaffected country squire. He was delighted. The man was an original—the exterior of a rustic hiding a soul of pure artistry under an ill-cut jacket. And handsome besides, with shoulders like a barn door. London would be at his feet! The reputation of
Camena
would be made.

“Not what a true poet like yourself would do, Mr. Lovelace,” Sylvester said, bowing.

“Afraid there’s been a bit of a mix-up,” Dick said. “I ain’t Francis Lovelace. She is.” He tossed his head in Rosalind’s direction.